Italo Griselli (1880 – 1958) - Sculpture, Scontro tra galli - 40 cm - Bronze with a dark patina

Italo Griselli (Montescudaio, 1880 – Florence, 1958)
Fighting Cocks
Dark-patinated bronze, 40 x 38.5 x 25 cm
On a marble base

Italo Griselli (Montescudaio, 1880 – Florence, 1958) is one of the most accomplished and technically skilled figures in twentieth-century Italian sculpture, an artist able to bring the restraint of the classical tradition into dialogue with the monumental tensions of his time. Born in Montescudaio (Val di Cecina, province of Pisa) in 1880, he studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Florence under Augusto Rivalta. However, it was his long stay in Russia, which lasted more than a decade until the outbreak of the October Revolution, that refined his sculptural sensibility and earned him international renown as an exceptional portraitist of the Russian aristocracy and the imperial family. Upon his return to Italy, Griselli embraced the spirit of the “Return to Order,” developing his art in a monumental direction that found ample scope in major public commissions under the Fascist regime, while always retaining a stylistic independence characterized by simplified volumes and a certain archaizing solemnity. Among his most famous public works is undoubtedly the colossal Genius of Sport (originally conceived as the Genius of Fascism), located in front of the Palace of the Offices in Rome’s EUR district: an athletic figure whose saluting gesture perfectly embodies the ideal of strength and balance that Griselli pursued throughout his mature career. In the broad panorama of Italian monumental sculpture, Italo Griselli left a significant mark, helping to celebrate some of the nation’s most important figures and symbols. At the Vittoriano complex in Rome, the colossal monument dedicated to Victor Emmanuel II, Griselli put his technical mastery to the test by creating the statue personifying the city of Florence, part of the imposing series of sculptures dedicated to Italy’s noble cities that adorn the base of the great portico. His deep ties to Tuscany and its artistic tradition find perfect expression in the figure of the Arno, created for the base of the Ponte della Vittoria in Florence. In this work, Griselli interprets the river as a powerful river god, a personification that recalls classical statuary but is rendered with a modern sensibility, evoking the force of the water through vigorous musculature and the stone’s simplified modeling, while perfectly integrating the sculpture into the city’s architectural and natural setting. On the Ligurian Riviera, the artist paid tribute to Italy’s first queen with the Monument to Queen Margherita in Bordighera, unveiled in 1939 in a picturesque location along Via Romana, overlooking the sea. Although Griselli’s reputation is inextricably linked to monumental statuary and the celebration of human heroism, his animalier works, exemplified by this bronze Fighting Cocks, represent one of the most authentic, free, and technically refined strands of his entire career. This interest was not merely a stylistic exercise, but a profound exploration of the vitality of form, rooted in his Florentine training and influenced by the teachings of masters such as Sirio Tofanari. For Griselli, the animal was not merely a decorative subject, but an organism through which to explore muscular tension, the rhythm of movement, and a sculptural synthesis that often anticipated almost abstract solutions: his animals are often captured in moments of alert stillness or imminent action, transforming matter into pure energy and demonstrating a profound understanding of anatomy and volume.

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