Fausto Melotti (1901–1986) was an Italian sculptor,

ceramicist Ceramic art is art made from ceramic materials, including clay. It may take forms including artistic pottery, including tableware, tiles, figurines and other sculpture. As one of the plastic arts, ceramic art is one of the visual arts. Wh ...

poet A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator ( thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral or writte ...

, and theorist.

Life

Fausto Melotti was born in the city of

Rovereto Rovereto (; "wood of sessile oaks"; locally: ''Roveredo'') is a city and ''comune'' in Trentino in northern Italy, located in the Vallagarina valley of the Adige River. History Rovereto was an ancient fortress town standing at the frontier ...

, a city just east of

Lake Garda Lake Garda ( it, Lago di Garda or ; lmo, label=Eastern Lombard, Lach de Garda; vec, Ƚago de Garda; la, Benacus; grc, Βήνακος) is the largest lake in Italy. It is a popular holiday location in northern Italy, about halfway between ...

in northeastern Italy in 1901. He had a sister,

Renata Melotti Renata is an Italian, Polish, Tatarian, Russian, Ukrainian, Germanian, Sweden, Spanish, Portuguese, Hungarian, Czech, and Lithuanian feminine given name. See Renatus. In Francophone countries there is a cognate name Renée. The following peopl ...

, who was also an artist―Renata married the architect

Gino Pollini Gino Pollini (19 January 1903 in Rovereto – 25 January 1991 in Milan) was an Italian architect. Life Gino Pollini was born in Rovereto on January 19, 1903, to Luigi Pollini, a shopkeeper, and Teresa Miori Pollini. At the time of Pollini ...

. During the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

, his family fled intense fighting in the Alpine region and moved to

Florence Florence ( ; it, Firenze ) is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2016, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.Bilancio demografico an ...

. Melotti was married and had two daughters; one, Marta Melotti started the foundation dedicated to her father's work. Melotti passed away at his home on Corso Magenta in Milan on 22 June 1986.

Education

In Florence, Melotti enrolled in the Istituto Tecnico di Firenze and then the

Università di Pisa The University of Pisa ( it, Università di Pisa, UniPi), officially founded in 1343, is one of the oldest universities in Europe. History The Origins The University of Pisa was officially founded in 1343, although various scholars place ...

where he studied

physics Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge which r ...

and

mathematics Mathematics is an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. These topics are represented in modern mathematics ...

. Moving to

Milan Milan ( , , Lombard: ; it, Milano ) is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, and the second-most populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of about 1.4 million, while its metropolitan city h ...

the following year, he enrolled in the Reale Istituto Tecnico Superiore and then continued his studies at the

Politecnico di Milano The Polytechnic University of Milan () is the largest technical university in Italy, with about 42,000 students. The university offers undergraduate, graduate and higher education courses in engineering, architecture and design. Founded in 186 ...

at the School of Applied Industrial Engineering. After some time back in Rovereto, Melotti returned to Milan, finishing his degree at the Politecnico in 1924. After this, Melotti enrolled at the

Accademia di Brera The Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera ("academy of fine arts of Brera"), also known as the or Brera Academy, is a state-run tertiary public academy of fine arts in Milan, Italy. It shares its history, and its main building, with the Pinacoteca di ...

in Milan, working alongside

Lucio Fontana Lucio Fontana (; 19 February 1899 – 7 September 1968) was an Argentine-Italian painter, sculptor and theorist. He is mostly known as the founder of Spatialism. Early life Born in Rosario, to Italian immigrant parents, he was t ...

under the tutelage of sculptor

Adolfo Wildt Adolfo Wildt (March 1, 1868 – March 12, 1931) was an Italian sculptor. He is mostly known for his marble sculptures, which blend simplicity and sophistication, and paved the way for numerous modernist sculptors.http://translate.googleusercont ...

Artistic career

Between 1919 and 1922, Melotti frequently returned to Rovereto where he became active in the

Futurist Futurists (also known as futurologists, prospectivists, foresight practitioners and horizon scanners) are people whose specialty or interest is futurology or the attempt to systematically explore predictions and possibilities abou ...

movement. Working with his cousin and art theorist Carlo Belli (1903–1991), his brother-in-law architect

, and Futurist painter, playwright and designer Fotrunato Depero, Melotti contributed to work created at the latter's " Casa d'Arte Futurista". Melotti returned to Milan; there he was associated with the young architecture collaborative in Milan, "

Gruppo 7 Gruppo 7 was a group of Italian architects who wanted to reform architecture by the adoption of Rationalism. It was formed in 1926 by Luigi Figini, Guido Frette, Sebastiano Larco, Gino Pollini, Carlo Enrico Rava, Giuseppe Terragni and Ubaldo Castagn ...

"—

Pollini Pollini may refer to: * Gino Pollini (1903–1991), an Italian architect, father of Maurizio * John Pollini, an American professor of Art History and History at the University of Southern California * Maurizio Pollini (born 1942), an Italian classi ...

Luigi Figini is a fictional character featured in video games and related media released by Nintendo. Created by Japanese video game designer Shigeru Miyamoto, Luigi is portrayed as the younger fraternal twin brother and sidekick of Mario, Nintendo's masc ...

(1903–1984),

Giuseppe Terragni Giuseppe Terragni (; 18 April 1904 – 19 July 1943) was an Italian architect who worked primarily under the fascist regime of Benito Mussolini and pioneered the Italian modern movement under the rubric of Rationalism. His most famous work is the C ...

Carlo Enrico Rava Carlo is a given name. It is an Italian form of Charles. It can refer to: * Carlo (name) *Monte Carlo * Carlingford, New South Wales, a suburb in north-west Sydney, New South Wales, Australia *A satirical song written by Dafydd Iwan about Prince ...

(1903–1985),

Guido Frette Guido is a given name Latinised from the Old High German name Wido. It originated in Medieval Italy. Guido later became a male first name in Austria, Germany, the Low Countries, Scandinavia, Spain, Portugal, Latin America and Switzerland. The me ...

(1901–1984), Sebatiano Larco (1870–1959), and

Ubaldo Castagnoli Ubaldo is a masculine Italian and Spanish given name, from Germanic ''hug'' "mind" and ''bald'' "bold". Notable people with the name include: *Ubald of Gubbio (Ubaldo Baldassini) (c. 1084 – 1160), Italian bishop and Catholic saint * Guido Ubaldo ...

(1882 – after 1926). Melotti's friendship with Fontana grew, and he even was living with him for a time in Milan. Throughout the 1930s, Melotti continued to collaborate with a number of important architects and their firms:

, and others like

Gio Ponti Giovanni "Gio" Ponti ( ͡ʒo18 November 1891 – 16 September 1979) was an Italian architect, industrial designer, furniture designer, artist, teacher, writer and publisher. During his career, which spanned six decades, Ponti built more tha ...

and

BBPR BBPR was an architectural partnership founded in Milan, Italy in 1932. Partnership The BBPR studio was formed in Milan in 1932 in a climate described by Giorgio Ciucci as “oscillating between differing and contrasting positions.” The name ...

. At this time, Melotti created his most iconic series, a set of purely abstract sculptures, which he exhibited at the progressive Milanese abstractionist gallery Il Milione, in 1935. In the accompanying catalogue to the exhibition, Melotti outlined his ideas about abstraction. In 1938, Melotti received his first major Fascist commission to create

maquette A ''maquette'' (French word for scale model, sometimes referred to by the Italian names ''plastico'' or ''modello'') is a scale model or rough draft of an unfinished sculpture. An equivalent term is ''bozzetto'', from the Italian word for "sketc ...

s sculpture for the E 42 ( Esposizione universale di Roma 1942 or Universal Exposition of 1942) project. From this, he won a contract for two series of full-sized sculptures in 1941; when moved to

Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus (legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...

to work on the final marbles—only one set of which would be completed. In 1943, he returned to Milan to find his studio destroyed by British bombers. Throughout the 1940s and 50s, Melotti worked almost exclusively in ceramics and

terracotta Terracotta, terra cotta, or terra-cotta (; ; ), in its material sense as an earthenware substrate, is a clay-based ceramic glaze, unglazed or glazed ceramic where the pottery firing, fired body is porous. In applied art, craft, construction, a ...

, and continued to participate in exhibitions at the new post-war Milan

Triennale The Triennale di Milano is a design and art museum in the Parco Sempione in Milan, in Lombardy in northern Italy. It is housed in the Palazzo dell'Arte, which was designed by Giovanni Muzio and built between 1931 and 1933; construction was fina ...

. Then in 1961, Melotti returned to his earlier imagery with his work ''I Sette savi''. This work marked another shift in the sculptors' oeuvre. During the rest of his career, Melotti continued to create works in ceramic, while beginning a new set of works constructed from pieces of metal. These works return to a more abstract form, yet with some Kandinskian figurative traces. Through the 1970s and '80s, his work was much acclaimed and he won a number of national and international prizes for sculpture, culminating in a major retrospective at the Forte Belvedere in Florence in 1981.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Melotti, Fausto 1901 births 1986 deaths 20th-century Italian sculptors 20th-century Italian male artists Italian ceramists 20th-century Italian poets People from Rovereto University of Pisa alumni Polytechnic University of Milan alumni Brera Academy alumni Italian contemporary artists