Giorgio GIORDANI
From a modest familly of Emilie Romagne, G. Giordani, born in 1905, was a sensitive teenager, close to his brother Angelo, poet and writer who dies prematurely, in 1933. At the age of 14, he fled his home to join Gabriele d’Annunzio’s troops and participated in the expedition to Fiume. Back home, he enrolled at the Fine Arts School in Bologna where he will be graduated in two years, instead of four. Thanks to his talent, he can open a sculpture studio in 1928, where he mainly carved busts of the local bourgeoisie.
In 1934, he took part for the first time in the Venise Biennale where his piece, Groupe de danseurs, is so successful that it was bought by the Modern Art Museum in Rome. His Pêcheuse, made the next years will be bought by the Modern Art Museum of the city of Bologna. In 1936, he was entrusted with the creation of an important low relief frieze for the Palais du Gaz, a modernist building conceived by architects A. Legnani and L. Petrucci. It is devoted to the cycle of gas, from its extraction to its public and private uses, which highlights the symbols of social progress of the time, and is an opportunity for the artist to present many male bodies in all labor activities.
During the last four years of his life, which ended abruptly at the age of 35, he still participated in the Venice Biennale, where he mainly sent busts with a rather realistic appearance. He was then part of the intellectual and artistic elite of Bologna and is recognized as one of the great sculptors of his time. His oeuvre, often translated into marble or marmiglio (a mixture of marble and cement), is a praise to the human body, masculine or feminine, in its healthiest form, reflecting the aesthetics and ideology of the time. He is inspired by Greek and Roman sculptures, especially for the torso that we present here. His studio is completely destroyed with everything it contained during the siege of Bologna in April 1945, which makes his piece extremely rare apart from purchases by museums and busts kept in private hands
