Ulderico Fabbri (

Ferrara Ferrara (; ; ) is a city and ''comune'' (municipality) in Emilia-Romagna, Northern Italy, capital of the province of Ferrara. it had 132,009 inhabitants. It is situated northeast of Bologna, on the Po di Volano, a branch channel of the main ...

, July 2, 1897 – Ferrara, August 16, 1970) was an Italian

sculptor Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. Sculpture is the three-dimensional art work which is physically presented in the dimensions of height, width and depth. It is one of the plastic arts. Durable sc ...

Biography

He was born in Monestirolo, a hamlet of Ferrara, from the merchant Chiarissimo and Teresa Meotti. As a boy he worked at a marble cutter and attended evening classes at the "Dosso Dossi" art institute. Called to arms, he left for the

Macedonian front The Macedonian front, also known as the Salonica front (after Thessaloniki), was a military theatre of World War I formed as a result of an attempt by the Allied Powers to aid Serbia, in the autumn of 1915, against the combined attack of Germa ...

and, hit by a

grenade A grenade is a small explosive weapon typically thrown by hand (also called hand grenade), but can also refer to a Shell (projectile), shell (explosive projectile) shot from the muzzle of a rifle (as a rifle grenade) or a grenade launcher. A mod ...

, returned with a severe

atrophy Atrophy is the partial or complete wasting away of a part of the body. Causes of atrophy include mutations (which can destroy the gene to build up the organ), malnutrition, poor nourishment, poor circulatory system, circulation, loss of hormone, ...

in his left hand and a partial atrophy in the right. He obtained the pension of great invalid of war and in

Rome Rome (Italian language, Italian and , ) is the capital city and most populated (municipality) of Italy. It is also the administrative centre of the Lazio Regions of Italy, region and of the Metropolitan City of Rome. A special named with 2, ...

, thanks to a slow and constant rehabilitation, he recovered almost completely the use of his hands. He studied at the

Academy of Fine Arts The following is a list of notable art schools. Accredited non-profit art and design colleges * Adelaide Central School of Art * Alberta College of Art and Design * Art Academy of Cincinnati * Art Center College of Design * The Art Institute ...

. He created male nudes with

mutilated Mutilation or maiming (from the ) is severe damage to the body that has a subsequent harmful effect on an individual's quality of life. In the modern era, the term has an overwhelmingly negative connotation, referring to alterations that rend ...

lower limbs: they are painful and symbolic sculptures, inspired by

Antonio del Pollaiolo Antonio del Pollaiuolo ( , , ; 17 January 1429/14334 February 1498), also known as Antonio di Jacopo Pollaiuolo or Antonio Pollaiuolo (also spelled Pollaiolo), was an Italian Renaissance painter, sculptor, engraver, and goldsmith, who made i ...

and neo-fourteenth-century art. Ulderico Fabbri was also influenced by

Auguste Rodin François Auguste René Rodin (; ; 12 November 184017 November 1917) was a French sculptor generally considered the founder of modern sculpture. He was schooled traditionally and took a craftsman-like approach to his work. Rodin possessed a u ...

and

Medardo Rosso Medardo Rosso (; 21 June 1858 – 31 March 1928) was an Italian sculptor. He is considered, like his contemporary and admirer Auguste Rodin, to have been an artist working in a post-Impressionist style. Biography and works Rosso was born in Tur ...

. His style sometimes tends to geometry, for example in the marble sculpture Hippogriff, exhibited in 1928 in

. In the sculpture Bimbo al telefono (Child on the Telephone), in artificial stone, created in 1930 and now in

Modena Modena (, ; ; ; ; ) is a city and ''comune'' (municipality) on the south side of the Po Valley, in the Province of Modena, in the Emilia-Romagna region of northern Italy. It has 184,739 inhabitants as of 2025. A town, and seat of an archbis ...

at the Assicoop art collection, he mixes a modern element with the classical setting of the figure. He was the author, in the early 1930s, of some of the marble busts placed in the Shrine of Fascist Martyrs (Paolo Accorsi, Franco Gozzi, Rino Moretti) placed in the then new headquarters of the

Casa del Fascio A ''casa del Fascio'', ''casa Littoria'', or ''casa del Littorio'' () was a building housing the local branch of the National Fascist Party and later the Republican Fascist Party under the regime of Italian Fascism, in Italy and Italian Empire, i ...

, along with colleagues Giuseppe Virgili, Enzo Nenci, Antonio Alberghini, Laerte Milani and Gaetano Galvani. He sent his works to the International Exhibition of Sacred Art in

Padua Padua ( ) is a city and ''comune'' (municipality) in Veneto, northern Italy, and the capital of the province of Padua. The city lies on the banks of the river Bacchiglione, west of Venice and southeast of Vicenza, and has a population of 20 ...

in 1931, to the Primaverile in

Florence Florence ( ; ) is the capital city of the Italy, Italian region of Tuscany. It is also the most populated city in Tuscany, with 362,353 inhabitants, and 989,460 in Metropolitan City of Florence, its metropolitan province as of 2025. Florence ...

in 1933, to the

Venice Biennale The Venice Biennale ( ; ) is an international cultural exhibition hosted annually in Venice, Italy. There are two main components of the festival, known as the Art Biennale () and the Venice Biennale of Architecture, Architecture Biennale (), ...

in 1936. In 1937 his sculpture Giovinetto is acquired by the Gallery of Modern Art in Milan. In 1938 he made the marble bust of Marshal

Emilio De Bono Emilio De Bono (19 March 1866 – 11 January 1944) was an Italian general, fascist activist, marshal, war criminal, and member of the Fascist Grand Council (''Gran Consiglio del Fascismo''). De Bono fought in the Italo-Turkish War, the First Wo ...

of Italy, which was originally in Corte Delle Vittorie in Rome and is now in storage at the Casa Made Dei Mutilati in Rome. Other sculptures of his in

: the terracotta panels of the Via Crucis, in the Gran Claustro of the Church of San Cristoforo alla Certosa; Il Genio dell'arte, bronze sculpture on the facade of the Conservatorio Girolamo Frescobaldi (1930); the Fontana Narciso, in gilded bronze, at the Chamber of Commerce of Ferrara (1964); the neo-fourteenth-century Busto di Madonna, in terracotta, now owned by BPER (1946). The clay group of Ecce Homo (Ferrara, private collection) is originally resolved from the iconographic point of view, as well as Salvamento, terracotta of 1953, currently at the Cavallini-Sgarbi Foundation of Ro Ferrarese. In 1954 Ulderico Fabbri sculpted in white marble the statue lying on the funeral monument of Archbishop Ruggero Bovelli, placed in 1955 in the

Cathedral of Ferrara Ferrara Cathedral () is a Roman Catholic cathedral and minor basilica in Ferrara, Northern Italy. Dedicated to Saint George, the patron saint of the city, it is the seat of the Archbishop of Ferrara and the largest religious building in the city. ...

: a work on commission, in which the artist recovers all the academic tradition of Italian sculpture. A few years later he completed the realization of the altar of the Sacred Heart in the

Cathedral of Milan Milan Cathedral ( ; ), or Metropolitan Cathedral-Basilica of the Nativity of Saint Mary (), is the cathedral church of Milan, Lombardy, Italy. Dedicated to the Nativity of St. Mary (), it is the seat of the Archbishop of Milan, currently Archbi ...

, designed but left unfinished by Edoardo Rubino. The terracottas of his last years, which represent suffering figures, with half-closed eyes in the slit of the eyelids, oscillate between a recovered

primitivism In the arts of the Western world, Primitivism is a mode of aesthetic idealization that means to recreate the experience of ''the primitive'' time, place, and person, either by emulation or by re-creation. In Western philosophy, Primitivism propo ...

and the disintegration of the form on the example of

Flavia Franceschini's documentary Ulderico Fabbri, a sculptor from Ferrara, also includes the film Al Filò, shot in 1953 by

Florestano Vancini Florestano Vancini (24 August 1926 – 18 September 2008) was an cinema of Italy, Italian film director and screenwriter. He directed over 20 films since 1960. His 1966 film ''Seasons of Our Love, Le stagioni del nostro amore'', starring Enr ...

, which contains an interview with Ulderico Fabbri in the courtyard of his studio in Via Boccaleone in Ferrara, as well as interviews with Marcello Tassini, Ervardo Fioravanti, Giuseppe Virgili, Annibale Zucchini, Danilo Farinella, Nemesio Orsatti, and Galileo Cattabriga.

References

Bibliografia

* Lucio Scardino, FABBRI, Ulderico, in Dizionario biografico degli italiani, vol. 43, Roma, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana, 1993. URL consultato il 30 gennaio 2021. * Lucio Scardino (a cura di), Ulderico Fabbri (1897-1970): sculture ferraresi dagli anni '30 agli anni '50, Ferrara, Liberty house, 2015, SBN IT\ICCU\UFE\0994606.

Voci correlate

* Lina Arpesani * Evaristo Boncinelli * Carlo Bonomi (artista) * Gino Colognesi * Oscar Gallo * Lelio Gelli * Valmore Gemignani * Vitaliano Marchini * Giorgio Sallustio Rossi * Giuseppe Virgili {{DEFAULTSORT:Fabbri, Ulderico Italian sculptors