Giacomo Manzù

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Monumento al partigiano (1977), Bergamo. Photo by Paolo Monti .

Giacomo Manzù (actually: Giacomo Manzoni ; born December 22, 1908 in Bergamo , Italy ; † January 17, 1991 in Ardea near Rome , Italy) was an Italian sculptor, medalist , graphic artist and draftsman.

biography

Manzù was born as the twelfth of 14 children into a shoemaker and sacristan family.

Politically, Manzù was in the resistance during fascism and later remained a communist .

Since the 1950s, two themes such as Gegenpole dominated his work: young, graceful female bodies in light, floating and dancing postures and strict cardinals, surrounded by liturgical vestments , immobile in form and face.

Manzù was initially influenced by Picasso . Later he discovered Rodin's art . In his art , which was entirely determined by the figurative, he always remained oriented towards nature; its portrayal was never completely abstract. In 1953 and 1983 he received an Antonio Feltrinelli Prize . In 1959 Giacomo Manzù took part in documenta II in Kassel . After the death of Pope John XXIII. In 1963 he was commissioned to make a bronze death mask. In 1964 he was accepted as an honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and in 1978 of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences . As a medalist, he also designed medals from the Vatican and coins from the Republic of San Marino.

Manzù died on January 17, 1991 at the age of 82 in Ardea near Rome , where he is also buried. His wife Inge (former prima ballerina at the Salzburger Landestheater ), whom he had met as a young dancer in 1954 and who had become his favorite model, decreed that everything in the studio in Ardea, near Rome, should stay as it was when he left it would have.

Art historical importance

Manzù mostly worked in bronze. In 1929 and 1936 Manzù traveled to Paris. It was there that the artist discovered the Impressionist surface treatment in the sculptures by Auguste Rodin and Edgar Degas . In his figurative formal language, his later sculptural work was also shaped by the Italian Romanesque and early Renaissance and also by the modern age. “Manzù based his figurative sculpture and relief art on the natural model and never designed it completely abstract. With a balanced degree of subtle grace and dignity, always formally elegant, his portrayal of people captivates with sensual empathy and vital realism. It was precisely the deeply felt, internalized manner of expression that was characteristic of Manzù. Like few artists in the 20th century, Manzù knew how to combine the abstract simplification of forms of modernity with the European tradition of realistic sculpture since antiquity and the Renaissance. "

Museo Manzù

The Museo Manzu, which houses around 400 drawings and sculptures by the artist, is also located in Ardea.

Awards

Works

Book illustrations (selection)

  • Jannis Ritsos : Milos dragged. Poems and poems. Hanser, Munich 1979, ISBN 3-446-12924-3 . With 11 pen drawings and an etching by Giacomo Manzù. Special edition also from Reclam, Leipzig 1979.

literature

Web links

Commons : Giacomo Manzù  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Barbara Hartl: Beautiful for eternity. ( Memento from March 13, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) In: PM Magazin . (Accessed November 4, 2012)
  2. ↑ Honorary Members: Giacomo Manzù. American Academy of Arts and Letters, accessed March 15, 2019 .
  3. ↑ MANZà ™ GIACOMO. In: MEDAGLISTI e INCISORI ITALIANI. Vittorio Lorioli, accessed March 30, 2014 (Italian).
  4. ^ Ralf van Bühren :  Manzù, Giacomo (1908–1991). In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 31, Bautz, Nordhausen 2010, ISBN 978-3-88309-544-8 , Sp. 826-835.  ( Article / beginning of article in Internet archive  on 2011-05-25)
  5. ^ Hubert Gaisbauer : The religious gaze of the atheist Manzù. ( Memento of February 24, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF file; 114 kB) Lecture in St. Virgil on November 27, 2008.
personal data
SURNAME Manzù, Giacomo
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Manzoni, Giacomo (real name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Italian sculptor, medalist, graphic artist and draftsman
DATE OF BIRTH December 22, 1908
PLACE OF BIRTH Bergamo , Italy
DATE OF DEATH January 17, 1991
Place of death Ardea near Rome , Italy