Giacomo Manzù is an Italian sculptor who was born in Bergamo on 22nd December, 1908. His first approaches to art began during his military service in Verona, where he studied the doors of San Zeno and the casts of Gian Battino Cignaroli Fine School of Arts.
After a brief stay in Paris, he moved to Milan and was commissioned by the architect Muzio to decorate the Catholic University’s chapel, which he carried out between 1931 and 1932.
In 1932, he took part in a group exhibition at the Galleria del Milione and in 1933, he exhibited a series of busts at Milan’s Triennale, receiving numerous appreciation. The following year, he held a solo exhibition with Aligi Sassu at the Galleria Comet in Rome. His work titled “Jesus and the Holy Women” won him the Grazioli prize of the Academy of Brera.
In 1936, he went with Aligi Sassu to Paris where he visited the Rodin Museum. There, he met impressionists and thus, developed the first seeds of anti- nineteen hundreds rebellion which led him into to join the “Current” movement.
In 1939, he produced a series of bronze bas-reliefs: “The Deposition” and “The Crucifixion” for the series “Christ in our humanity”- a theme that he first used to symbolise the brutality of fascism and then, the horrors of war.
In 1940, he was appointed Professor of sculpture at the Fine Arts Academy of Brera, however, after disagreements with his superiors about academic programs, he left his post to teach sculpture at the Albertina Accademy in Turin.
In 1942, he held an exhibition in Milan that was severely criticised by political and ecclesiastical authorities. As the war spread, he took refuge in Clusone with his entire family. In 1943, his portrait of Frances Blanc won the “Grand Premio” at the Quadrennial of Rome.
By order of the Germans, he left Clason and took refuge in Bergamo where he devoted himself to a series of drawings which would be published in 1948, with an introduction by Giulio Carlo Argan. In 1946 he met Alice Lampugnani who would go on to become the protagonist of a series of drawings and sculptures culminating in the famous “Great Painting of a Lady.” In 1947, the first major retrospective devoted to Manzù was inaugurated at the Royal Palace of Milan.
Also in 1947, he took part in a competition to select a design for the construction of St. Peter’s Basilica doors. In 1948, he participated in the XXIV Biennale of Venice and won the “Prize for Sculpture.” He was then selected for the second stage of the St. Peter’s Basilica door contest and spent most of his time, in the following years, devoted to studying sketches for the door until he was officially given charge of the project by the Vatican in January, 1952. His selected theme was the “Triumph of the Saints and Martyrs of the Church” .
He returned to teaching at the Brera Academy until 1954, when he transferred to Salzburg. There he met Inge Schabel- a dancer and model at the Academy- who would become his sole muse and his wife (with whom he would also have two children). In 1955, he was commissioned to realise the central door of the Cathedral of Salzburg, following the theme of love. It was inaugurated in 1958. In 1961, he was authorised by the Pontiff, Pope John XXIII, to change the theme of St Peter’s door to “The Door of Death” (which was inaugurated on 28th June, 1964) and in the same year he moved with his family in a town near Ardea, Rome, and subsequently renamed Manzù Hill.
He completed the Door of War for the church of St. Lauren in Rotterdam, whose theme is peace and war. It was inaugurated on 22nd November, 1968.
In 1968, he opened his own museum, the “Gathering of Friends of Manzù ” in Ardea, with a permanent exhibition of more than four hundred of his works.
In 1970, he was appointed Honorary Academic of the Royal Academy of Arts in London and it was in those years that he dedicated himself to the set designing profession. He was set designer for the most important productions of Igor Stravinsky; Godfrey Rubble, aude Debussy, Richard Wagner and Giuseppe Verdi. He married Inge in Campidoglio, in 1972 – his best man being Guttuso. In 1973, he participated in the XII International Biennale of Sculpture in Antwerp which was held at Middelheim Park. In 1974, he received the Order of Scienze honour from the President of the Austrian Republic and held an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in Tokyo in the same year.
In 1979, he created two fundamental sculptures in Bergamo: “Julia and Miletus on the coach” and “Great lovers” as well as holding a solo exhibiton at the Academy of Design Arts in Florence and donating his collection “Gathering of Friends of Manzù” to the Italian state.
In 1984, his travelling exhibition visited the most important cities in Japan and received the prestigious “Antonio Feltrinelli” International Prize for Sculpture which was assigned by the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei.
In 1988, his sculptures Faun and Nymph were collocated in the Tokyo Stock Exchange Building and in 1989, and his last six metre-high monumental work “Hymn to Life (Mother and Child) ” was donated to the United Nations in New York by the Italian state and unveiled in front of the UN Headquarters.
He died in Rome on 17th January, 1991.
