Borgo Museo | Sculture 1976 – 2004
Biography
Pietro Cioni or Pietro Pratovalle (artistic name dedicated to the town of his grandparents, where he spent his childhood), was a pupil of fellow citizen Venturino Venturi (artist whose work Scultura in terra is present in Castagno). Born on 18 July 1945 into a family of restaurateurs, he grew up in Pratovalle (a fraction of the municipality of Loro Ciuffenna, in the province of Arezzo) and then moved to Loro Ciuffenna where he still lives, works and paints since 1965. After a career as a teacher, he took over the family restaurant and in the meantime he has always cultivated his passion for art, creating in his studio imaginative works with various materials, including waste, and from 1970 to the 1990s participating in various exhibitions in around Italy.
Philosophy
Drawings, paintings and sculptures: Pietro Cioni’s works are always something new, the result of constant artistic research. The artist loves to experiment and play with different materials. The intent is to express one’s intimacy, emotions and feelings in a simple and universal way. The seemingly naive language is actually the result of passionate study and continuous practice. “In the seventies” – wrote the artist in 1989 – “I painted above all suffering: imprisoned children and the dark struggles of Don Quixote. At the end of the seventies, the children put on their wings (angels) and took me to the top where individual sufferings are no longer distinguished, but the soul of the earth appears with its shadow and light. I tried to represent the intricate forests that every day turn bright or brown, inside us”.
Artwork in Castagno
Among the many maternities present in the Castagno Open Air Museum, finally also a paternity! This copper sculpture by Pietro Cioni entitled Amor Filiale represents two male figures, an adult holding a child in his arms. A similar sculpture for the technique, which instead portrays the artist’s grandmother, is located inside the Il Cipresso restaurant of the Cioni family in Loro Ciuffenna, a place that exhibits many works, paintings and sculptures, by the artist who still works in the his studio a few steps from the business. The work was chosen by Tommaso Paloscia when, during his meeting in Loro Ciuffenna with Venturino Venturi (artist present in Castagno with Scultura in terra), this led him to visit Pietro Cioni’s studio. The artist recalls that it was probably the art critic Paloscia who gave the title Amor Filiale to this sculpture that as soon as he saw he proposed to exhibit it at the open-air museum of Castagno. The work is now immersed in the green of the woods, on the tree-lined road that leads to Casa Paloscia, right at the point where Via Valle e Vigna curves towards the group of houses indicated by chestnuts as “La Vigna”. The work was recently restored by Riccardo Bisconti (a Castilian inhabitant and member of the Pro Loco) and relocated here, to the Alberuccio fountain (where there is also a nineteenth-century hydraulic tunnel of the Porrettana Railway), instead of inside the town (where it was in the past), precisely with the intention of starting to spread the Borgo Museo outside the “walls”. The relocation of the work was inaugurated in October 2020.