Angelo Biancini Biography
Angelo Biancini (Castel Bolognese, 24 April 1911 – Castel Bolognese, 3 January 1988) was an Italian sculptor, ceramist and teacher. In 1929 Angelo Biancini enrolled at the Art Institute of Florence and had Libero Andreotti as his teacher, who always recommended his students to always engage with nature and not get lost in useless formal virtuosity. Biancini found a studio in a former convent and there he dedicated himself first to majolica, then to modeling and sculpture. In 1934, with Lupa he won the Sculpture section at the Littoriali dell'Arte held in Rome and executed a portrait of a woman - now in the Municipal Art Gallery of Faenza - identifiable as the same person portrayed the following year, in the bronze Donna romagnola. The young woman was his wife Dina, whose idealized features are also found in the Prayer and Faith of 1937, and in the Winged Victory of the War Memorial of Lavezzola, of 1936. In 1934 Angelo Biancini obtained the License of Master of Art, in Decorative Sculpture section, at the Academy of Florence and exhibited the lost wax bronze La Luzcha at the Venice Biennale. With objects made to his design, he took part in the VI Milan Triennale. In 1935 he created the Victorious Athlete statue for the Foro Mussolini (now Stadio dei Marmi) in Rome, where in 1935 he exhibited at the II Quadrennial of National Art. In 1937 he created two sculptural groups for the Ponte delle Vittorie, in Verona. Gaetano Ballardini helped him move to Laveno where, from 1937 to 1940, Biancini collaborated with Guido Andlovitz, artistic director of the company, training ceramists and creating ceramic sculptures to relaunch the name of the Società Ceramica Italiana, which in 1940 won the Gran Award for artistic ceramics, at the Milan Triennale. In 1942 Biancini taught at the Institute of Ceramic Art in Faenza and after the war he took over from Domenico Rambelli in the chair of Plastics, which he would hold until retirement age. Alongside his teaching activity, Biancini continued his artistic activity. In 1943, at a solo show, organized as part of the Roman Quadrennial, he obtained the "National" prize. In 1946 he received the "Faenza" Prize with the Annunciation, a large ceramic panel, enamelled by Anselmo Bucci. It will obtain the same recognition in 1957, with the bas-relief Jesus among the doctors. After the war, Biancini was present at the great exhibition of Italian sculpture, organized by the La Spiga Gallery in Milan in 1946; in 1948 the Cairola Gallery organized a solo exhibition for him at the Galleria dell'Illustrazione Italiana in Milan, with 36 works including plaster casts, ceramics and bronzes. He received praise from the art critic Leonardo Borgese. This was followed by a solo exhibition in 1956, at the Galleria San Fedele, where Biancini presented 50 sculptures. At the Palazzo Esposizioni in Milan Biancini won the Bagutta for Sculpture in 1961; in the same year he was awarded the bronze Saint John in the Desert at the International Exhibition of Sacred Art in Trieste, an award he won again in 1963 with Il Pastore Sacro. He attracted attention in Padua, at the International Bronze Exhibition, in 1963. Among his monumental works are the reliefs for the new Basilica of Nazareth in 1959, the canopy of the Temple of the Canadian Martyrs in Rome in 1961 and the sculptures for the Ospedale Maggiore of Milan in 1964. In Rome, at Palazzo Braschi, a complete overview of his bronzes was organized in 1973 and in the same period a personal room was dedicated to him in the Collection of Modern Religious Art of the Vatican Museums. In 1980 the Municipality of Faenza awarded him the gold medal, honorary citizenship and set up a large anthology, where 150 of his sculptures were exhibited. On that same occasion he donated three of his sculptural works to the city of Faenza: a Saint Thomas Aquinas, a portrait of Alfredo Oriani, and a bust of the painter Roberto Sella. After the artist's death, the city of Faenza dedicated another anthology to him in 1988, with sculptures and ceramics. He also created sculptures for the Church of the Autostrada del Sole at the Florence junction, for the Hospitium of Camaldoli and for the FAO in Rome. Among the sculptural works in memoriam we remember the monument to the Alfonsine Resistance of 1972, the one dedicated to Alfredo Oriani in Casola Valsenio of 1963, the monument to Grazia Deledda in Cervia of 1956, the one to Angelo Celli in Cagli of 1958, the one to Don Minzoni in Argenta in 1973, and finally the sarcophagus of the venerable Benedetta Bianchi Porro, in Dovadola, in the Forlì Apennines.
