Francesco Messina (1900-1995) - Nudo

Three-color lithograph on paper - Hand-signed work at the bottom right and numbered at the bottom left - 50 x 70 cm - year 1989 - Limited edition - specimen will be shipped with certificate of guarantee 53/100 - unframed - excellent condition - private collection - purchased in Italy with provenance - shipping via UPS, SDA, DHL, TNT, BRT.
Biography
Francesco Messina was born on December 15, 1900, in Linguaglossa, a small town at the foot of Mount Etna, to Angelo Messina and Ignazia Cristaldi. His family was very humble: to escape poverty, in 1901, his parents decided to emigrate to America. Reaching Genoa, the Messina family did not board the ship because they were too poor to afford the journey and settled in Vico Fosse Del Colle, in the heart of one of the most popular areas of the city, where the future artist spent a solitary childhood among narrow streets, port piers, and rocks. He was soon attracted to sculpture: by day, Messina worked in marble worker workshops, where he was introduced to the craft; by night, he attended classes to complete elementary school and drawing courses. In the workshops of marble workers around the Staglieno Cemetery, Messina became aware of sculpture materials (especially marble and bronze) and learned processing techniques: the relationship with the material and knowledge of traditional sculpture techniques would be essential starting points and references for his artistic practice. After fighting in World War I, he returned to Genoa, attended courses at the Ligustica Academy of Fine Arts, and established relationships with various writers and intellectuals, including Eugenio Montale, who introduced him to poetry, and Salvatore Quasimodo. In 1921, he exhibited at the First Biennale of Naples, and from 1922, he began participating in the Venice Biennale, where he was present in all editions until 1942, the year he won the First Prize, and where he met artists like Carlo Carrà and Adolfo Wildt. In 1922, he met Bianca Fochessati Clerici, a wealthy woman already married with a daughter, who would become his wife only in 1943. One of the few friends of the couple was Montale: together, Messina undertook one of his first artistic educational trips, visiting major Tuscan cities. In 1926, he exhibited for the first time in Milan, at the Novecento Italiano exhibition, where he presented a self-portrait and met colleague Arturo Martini, a friend and rival. In 1929, he held his first solo exhibition in Milan, introduced by Carlo Carrà, and began exhibiting more frequently abroad. At thirty-two, he moved to the Lombard capital, which he already frequented for cultural initiatives and foundries, where he came into contact with cultural figures like Alfonso Gatto and Giorgio Morandi. During this period, he undertook study trips to major European museums and Greece, where he engaged directly with classical sculpture. On these occasions, Messina had the opportunity to see and often touch the works of classical antiquity, from which he drew lessons and which represented the perfection to which the artist must aspire. His interest in the ancient and the need for direct contact with past works also materialized in a small archaeological collection, consisting of about seventy pieces of Greek, Roman, and Etruscan production, along with artifacts of Egyptian, Chinese, and Mesoamerican origin. The artist kept it displayed in his Milanese home salon, with the intention of donating it later to Milan, his adopted city. The most substantial part of the collection consisted of terracotta statuettes of Greek and Magna Graecia origin, depicting little horses, draped female figures, and nudes—all subjects dear to the artist and still bearing traces of vivid colors in some cases. The polychromy, typical of classical art, appears in many of Messina’s works, who paid great attention to color in his sculptures in terracotta, plaster, and bronze. His reflection on classical art and tradition intertwined with continuous experimentation and an open search for stimuli of his time. By the late 1920s, he became a nationally renowned artist and one of the leading figures of Italian art. In 1934, he obtained the chair of sculpture at the Brera Academy through a competitive process, succeeding Adolfo Wildt; two years later, he was also appointed director of all art schools at the Academy. Due to his proximity to the fascist regime, evident in the commissions and numerous portraits of top government officials he created during the twenty years of fascist rule, he was eventually removed from teaching after World War II. However, as early as 1947, he regained his chair at Brera, thanks also to the intervention of some anti-fascist friends, including Renato Guttuso and Sirio Musso. That same year, he received international critical and public recognition, exhibiting in Buenos Aires, encouraged by his friend Lucio Fontana, and in Philadelphia. In the 1950s, the sculptor was very active in exhibitions in Italy and abroad and was highly sought after for both public and monumental works and private commissions. Among his most famous public works, created between the late 1950s and the 1960s, are busts of Giacomo Puccini and Pietro Mascagni for La Scala Theatre, the Monument to Santa Caterina at Castel Sant’Angelo, the Monument to Pius XII for St. Peter’s Basilica, the Dying Horse for RAI, which made him famous to the general public. Interviews and public appearances also became frequent, praising his skills as a draftsman, sculptor, painter, and even poet. During these years, he continued his figurative research rooted in classical tradition, which received both acclaim and resistance. Messina remained faithful to this choice of tradition and realism even when colleagues and friends pursued different paths. With this background, the sculptor addressed themes central to his artistic research: portraiture; the representation of the body and movement; the taste for fragment, typical of the twentieth century but also an archaeological reference to ruins, useful for expressing the fleeting nature of things. His creative process began with studying from life, drawing, followed by a terracotta model to be translated into bronze or marble. In the early 1970s, after retirement, Francesco Messina established his studio in the former Church of San Sisto, granted by the Municipality in exchange for a complete restoration of the building. In this space, Messina created not only his new workshop but also his monographic museum, mainly thanks to a selection of works donated to the City of Milan, forming the first core of the Studio Museum collection. Simultaneously, Messina chose to donate some of his works to major Italian museums, such as the National Museum of the Bargello in Florence, and foreign ones, like the Modern Art Gallery in Munich, the Pushkin Museum in Moscow, and the Hermitage in St. Petersburg. In 1994, he received the Sculpture Award from the Presidency of the Council of Ministers. He passed away on September 13, 1995, in Milan, the city that had welcomed and hosted him for much of his life and which had awarded him honorary citizenship years earlier. The Presidency of the Republic posthumously awarded him the Culture Prize.