Borgo Museo | Sculture 1976 – 2004
Biography
Marcello Fantoni was born in Florence on October 1, 1915. Growing up, he became passionate about art, and therefore enrolled in the Art Institute of Porta Romana, to attend the course in the Art of Ceramics section. He graduated in 1934 and began his career as a ceramist. He himself will create the Ceramiche Fantoni factory in Florence, from which it will be very successful, both in Italy and abroad. During the Second World War Fantoni is involved in the partisan struggle in the mountains and, following the conclusion of the conflict, in 1946, he will expand his company. Given the modernity of his works, many of them have become part of some private collections and in the most important museums around the world, such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, but also in some museums in the United Kingdom and in the Japan. In Italy his works are exhibited at the International Museum of Ceramics in Faenza, at the National Museum of the Bargello and at the Department of Prints and Drawings of the Uffizi. In 1970 he founded his laboratory in Florence, the international school of ceramic art, where he continued to teach and work. Marcello Fantoni died in Florence in 2011.
Philosophy
Marcello Fantoni’s activity led to the creation of a heterogeneous artistic production, born from a continuous research by the artist, experimenting with many of the artistic currents of the twentieth century. This led him to model a ceramic in an extremely modern way, combining the taste for antiquity with the taste for simplification, typical of contemporary art. While the form of his works has often been transformed, “freed” from everything that the artist did not consider essential, the color has become more and more intense and brilliant and the chosen material gives his works a primitive aspect. Paloscia himself describes his style as that of an artist who manages “to gradually develop the art of sculpture in a personal way, strictly tied to the inalienable canons of plastic art and always remaining in the manipulation of clays.”
Artwork in Castagno
Following the first cycle of frescoes created in 1975, the Borgo Museo di Castagno was enlarged with other works by artists, almost always invited directly by the art critic Tommaso Paloscia. Among these there is also the sculpture by Marcello Fantoni entitled La vita (Life). The predominant part of the sculpture is certainly the particularity of the shape, which does not seem to be carved on stone but instead seems to come to life, outlined by the curved lines created by the artist. Fantoni studies the past a lot, but always tries to recreate it in his sculptures in a modern way. It is an abstract sculpture and is characterised by a great expressiveness; it is in fact a work that can be interpreted personally, in a subjective way.
Curiosity: Marcello Fantoni allegedly donated another sculpture to the Castagno Open Air Museum, entitled Il vortice (Vortex); unfortunately years ago it was almost destroyed and at the moment it is always waiting for a restoration.