Borgo Museo | Sculture 1976 – 2004

Biography

Delio Granchi was born in Sesto Fiorentino on 5 October 1910 and died at the age of 86 on 20 June 1997. He took part in the Second World War. In 1945, after returning from the war, he began his career as Councilor for Public Education of the Municipality of Sesto Fiorentino and later as director of the art institutes of Arezzo, Cascina and Sesto Fiorentino until 1958. He participated in the Rome Quadriennale, the Biennale di Venice, Tuscan Artists at Dusserdolf and at the Fiorino Biennale. We also remember the production of coins and the works of civil commitment, such as the shrine in memory of the massacre of the Collegino di Sesto Fiorentino in the Cemetery Maggiore of Sesto Fiorentino, the monument to the partisan on piazza Edmondo De Amicis in Sesto and the relief for the obelisk to the fallen in Piazza dell’Unità di Italia in Florence.

Philosophy

Delio Granchi was relieved of Libero Andreotti, whose style is linked to realism and futurism relating to the 1900s. Endowed with a particular spirit of research, he developed his own stylistic personality using unusual materials such as refractory earth, capable of producing entirely new effects. His early works are plastic and naturalistic sculptures, often of young women, modelled with modest sensuality and captured in moments of composure or serenity. The sculptures are life-size and while referring to the Renaissance tradition they express a new and modern sensitivity and sensuality. Later he devoted himself mainly to small works in wax, clay or bronze, paying new attention to the human body, this time in motion, which the sculptor manages to capture in the elegance of the dancers or in the psychological tension of the athletes.

Artwork in Castagno

His sculpture in Castagno bears the name Così sia (So be it) and is the representation of a woman during the act of prayer; in this statue we see a non-proportion of her body, we see a very elongated neck like her hands, broad shoulders, unusual for a woman, her face is disproportionate to her bust. The figure of the woman is represented half-length, precisely to give importance to her hands joined in prayer and to her face that expresses a sense of devotion and seriousness. We can also observe that the author did not give much importance to the woman’s clothing, many details are not noticed and it is not worked. The author represents here the seriousness and devotion of the woman gathered in prayer.