Leonardo Castellani (1896 – 1984) was an Italian engraver and painter, mainly active depicting landscapes with

chalcography Engraving is the practice of incising a design onto a hard, usually flat surface by cutting grooves into it with a Burin (engraving), burin. The result may be a decorated object in itself, as when silver, gold, steel, or Glass engraving, glass ...

Biography

Born in Faenza to a furniture maker, he moved to Cesena with his family, and studied there till 1913, when he enrolled in the

Accademia di Belle Arti di Firenze The Accademia di Belle Arti di Firenze ("academy of fine arts of Florence") is an instructional art academy in Florence, in Tuscany, in central Italy. It was founded by Cosimo I de' Medici in 1563, under the influence of Giorgio Vasari. ...

, where he studied sculpture along with

Osvaldo Licini Osvaldo Licini (22 March 1894 – 11 October 1958) was an Italian painter, active as an abstract artist. Osvaldo was born in Ascoli Piceno Ascoli Piceno (; la, Asculum; dialetto ascolano: Ascule) is a town and ''comune'' in the Marche regi ...

. After serving in the army 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 ...

, he worked in the studio of the sculptor

Ettore Ferrari Ettore Ferrari (Rome, 25 March 1845 – Rome, 19 August 1929) was an Italian sculptor. Biography Born in Rome to an artistic family (his father was also a painter), Ferrari was one of the members of the artistic rebirth in the secular state bo ...

in Rome, where he met the ''Futurist'' Giacomo Balla. He returned to Cesena where he worked with ceramics, but by 1928–1930 he began to concentrate on his engravings. He became a teacher of chalcography for the Scuola del Libro in Urbino. He remained in Urbino most of his life. After the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, he published a number of journals and books containing his engravings, including ''Quaderni di un calcografo'' (1955), ''Cronache d’Amore in versi'' (1968), ''Giornate lunghe in Sardegna'' (1969), ''13 Canzonette'' (1971), ''Invito in Sicilia'' (1973), and ''Donne donne così sia'' (1979). In 1986, his widow and sons donated many works to the town of Urbino, to form the nucleus of the Raccolta Castellani exhibition now in the ex-Collegio Raffaello di Urbino.Biography from Sistema Provinciale Arte Contemporanea of Pesaro and Urbino
, quoting Floriano De Santi, La donazione Castellani, Fondazione Umberto Mastroianni, 2005, p. 69.

References

1896 births 1984 deaths 20th-century Italian painters 20th-century Italian male artists Italian male painters Italian engravers People from Urbino Accademia di Belle Arti di Firenze alumni 20th-century engravers {{Italy-engraver-stub