Giannino Castiglioni (4 May 1884 – 27 August 1971) was an Italian sculptor and medallist. He worked mostly in monumental and funerary sculpture; his style was representational, and far from the

modernist Modernism is both a philosophy, philosophical and arts movement that arose from broad transformations in Western world, Western society during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The movement reflected a desire for the creation of new fo ...

and

avant-garde The avant-garde (; In 'advance guard' or ' vanguard', literally 'fore-guard') is a person or work that is experimental, radical, or unorthodox with respect to art, culture, or society.John Picchione, The New Avant-garde in Italy: Theoretical ...

trends of the early twentieth century.Carlo Livio Castiglioni (2007)
Lo "Studio Castiglioni" – Una storia lunga un secolo
(in Italian). Fondazione Achille Castiglioni. Archived 2 January 2014.

Life

Giannino Castiglioni was born on 4 May 1884 in

Milan Milan ( , , Lombard: ; it, Milano ) is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, and the second-most populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of about 1.4 million, while its metropolitan city h ...

, the son of Giacomo Castiglioni and Piera Bergamaschi. His father was director of the Stefano Johnson

mint MiNT is Now TOS (MiNT) is a free software alternative operating system kernel for the Atari ST system and its successors. It is a multi-tasking alternative to TOS and MagiC. Together with the free system components fVDI device drivers, XaA ...

in that city. Castiglioni studied sculpture under Enrico Butti at the

Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera The Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera ("academy of fine arts of Brera"), also known as the or Brera Academy, is a state-run tertiary public academy of fine arts in Milan, Italy. It shares its history, and its main building, with the Pinacoteca ...

in Milan. He first exhibited at the Milan International Exhibition in 1906, where he showed medals, a plaster statue and a painting. Castiglioni first opened a large studio on the Corso di Porta Nuova, and in 1927 he opened a second studio at his house in Lierna, on Lake Como. He married Livia Bolla, with whom he had four children: Livio (b. 1911), Pier Giacomo (b. 1913) and Achille (b. 1918). A daughter named Piera died in her infancy and is memorialised with a funerary sculpture by her father. He died in Lierna on 27 August 1971.

Work

From 1922 until 1928 Castiglioni worked on the plaster casts for

frieze In architecture, the frieze is the wide central section part of an entablature and may be plain in the Ionic or Doric order, or decorated with bas-reliefs. Paterae are also usually used to decorate friezes. Even when neither columns nor ...

s and monumental sculptures for the Palacio Legislativo of Montevideo, Uruguay; these were shipped to Uruguay, and the bronze or marble sculptures were made there. In the Fascist era he worked on sculptures for war cemeteries and monuments to the dead of the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

, including: the military memorial of Monte Grappa (1935) in the

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; the (1937) in the comune of

Paluzza Paluzza ( fur, Paluce) is a ''comune'' (municipality) in the Province of Udine in the Italian region Friuli-Venezia Giulia. A local term in the Bavarian language for " hello" is . Geography It is located about northwest of Trieste and about nor ...

, Udine; the military ossuary of

Caporetto Kobarid (; it, Caporetto, fur, Cjaurêt, german: Karfreit) is a settlement in Slovenia, the administrative centre of the Municipality of Kobarid. Kobarid is known for the 1917 Battle of Caporetto, where the Italian retreat was documented by Er ...

, now Kobarid, Slovenia; and the war memorial of Redipuglia (1938) in the

province of Gorizia The Province of Gorizia ( it, Provincia di Gorizia, fur, Provincie di Gurize; sl, Goriška pokrajina) was a province in the autonomous Friuli–Venezia Giulia region of Italy, which was disbanded on 30 September 2017. Overview Its capital was th ...

. In 1941 he made the tomb of Pope Pius XI in the Vatican Grottoes.

Reception

Castiglioni won the competition for the prize medal at the Milan International Exhibition in 1906. In 1922 he won the international competition to provide sculptures for the Palacio Legislativo of Montevideo. He left more than three hundred of his preparatory plaster casts to the

comune The (; plural: ) is a local administrative division of Italy, roughly equivalent to a township or municipality. It is the third-level administrative division of Italy, after regions ('' regioni'') and provinces (''province''). The can also ...

of Lierna; a museum is to house them is under construction. File:El trabajo (Jardines del Palacio Legislativo) - Giannino Castiglioni.JPG, ''El trabajo'', bronze, Palacio Legislativo, Montevideo, Uruguay File:PiusXItomb2.jpg, Tomb of

Pius XI Pope Pius XI ( it, Pio XI), born Ambrogio Damiano Achille Ratti (; 31 May 1857 – 10 February 1939), was head of the Catholic Church from 6 February 1922 to his death in February 1939. He was the first sovereign of Vatican City f ...

, St. Peter's, Rome File:Antonio Bernocchi grave Milan 2015.jpg, Tomb of Antonio Bernocchi,

Cimitero Monumentale di Milano The Cimitero Monumentale (" Monumental Cemetery") is one of the two largest cemeteries in Milan, Italy, the other one being the Cimitero Maggiore. It is noted for the abundance of artistic tombs and monuments. Designed by the architect Carlo Ma ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Castiglioni, Giannino 1884 births 1971 deaths Artists from Milan People from Lierna 20th-century Italian sculptors 20th-century Italian male artists Italian male sculptors 20th-century Italian painters Italian male painters Art Nouveau medallists Italian medallists Brera Academy alumni