Pietro Consagra

Pietro Consagra
Consagra in 1947
Born	6 October 1920 Mazara del Vallo,Province of Trapani,Sicily
Died	16 July 2005 Milan
Nationality	Italian
Known for	sculpture
Movement	Forma 1 Continuità
Website	pietroconsagra.it

Sicania,1949

Specchio alienato,bronze,1961

Consagra's gate atGibellina,Sicily

Pietro Consagra(6 October 1920 – 16 July 2005) was an Italian sculptor. In 1947 he was among the founding members of theForma 1group of artists, who advocated bothMarxismand structuredabstraction.

Life

Consagra was born on 6 October 1920 inMazara del Vallo,in theprovinceofTrapaniin south-western Sicily, to Luigi Consagra and Maria Lentini.From 1931 he enrolled in a trade school for sailors, studying first to become a mechanic, and later to become a captain. In 1938 he moved toPalermo,where he enrolled in theliceo artistico;despite an attack oftuberculosis,he graduated in 1941, and in the same year signed up at theAccademia di Belle Arti,where he studiedsculptureunderArchimede Campini.After theInvasion of Sicilyand the Allied occupation of Palermo in 1943, Consagra found work as acaricaturistfor the AmericanRed Crossclub of the city; he also joined theItalian Communist Party.Early in 1944, armed with a letter of introduction from an American officer, he travelled to Rome. There he came into contact with the Sicilian artistConcetto Maugeri,and through him withRenato Guttuso,who was also Sicilian and who introduced him to the intellectual life of the city and to other artists such asLeoncillo Leonardi,Mario MafaiandGiulio Turcato.Consagra signed up at theAccademia di Belle Arti di Romain September 1944 and studied sculpture there underMichele Guerrisi,but left before completing his diploma.

Work

In 1947, withCarla Accardi,Ugo Attardi,Piero Dorazio,Mino Guerrini,Achille Perilli,Antonio SanfilippoandGiulio Turcato,Consagra started theartist's groupForma 1,which advocated bothMarxismand structuredabstraction.

Steadily Consagra's work began to find an audience. Working primarily in metal, and later in marble and wood, his thin, roughly carved reliefs, began to be collected by Peggy Guggenheim and other important patrons of the arts. He showed at the Venice Biennale eleven times between 1950 and 1993, and in 1960 won the sculpture prize at the exhibition.

During the 1960s he was associated with theContinuitàgroup, an offshoot of Forma I, and in 1967 taught at the School of Arts in Minneapolis. Large commissions allowed him to begin working on a more monumental scale, and works of his were installed in the courtyard of the Foreign Ministry in Rome and in the European Parliament, Strasbourg. His work is found in the collections of The Tate Gallery, London, inMuseo Cantonale d'ArteofLuganoand the Museum of Modern Art, Paris, and the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C..

Consagra returned to Sicily where he sculpted a number of significant works during the 1980s. With Senator Ludovico Corrao, he helped created an open-air museum in the new town ofGibellina,after the older town had been destroyed in the earthquake of 1968. Consagra designed the gates to the town's entrance, the building named "Meeting" and the gates to the cemetery, where he was later buried.

Writings

In 1952 Consagra publishedLa necessità della scultura( "the need for sculpture" ), a response to the essayLa scultura lingua morta( "sculpture, a dead language" ), published in 1945 byArturo Martini.Other works includeL'agguato c'è( "the snare exists", 1960), andLa città frontale( "the frontal city", 1969).His autobiography,Vita Mia,was published byFeltrinelliin 1980.

Reception

In 1989 a substantialretrospective exhibitionof work by Consagra was shown at theGalleria Nazionale d'Arte Modernain Rome; in 1993 a permanent exhibition of his work was installed there.In 1991 his work was shown in theHermitage MuseuminSt. Petersburg.In 2002 theGalerie der Stadt Stuttgartopened a permanent exhibition of his work.