Gruppo Np2 / Nerone E Patuzzi Biography
Nero Ceccarelli, stage name of Giovanni Ceccarelli (Pisa, 31 August 1937 – Paris, 7 November 1996), was an Italian sculptor. He worked in the spirit of research characterized by the integration between art and architecture, while he developed sculptures linked to a rigorous geometric abstractionism. Since 1954 he has lived between Venice and Florence, where his studies focus mainly on some Tuscan artists including Masaccio, Donatello, Paolo Uccello, Giovanni Pisano. In the meantime, he attended the sculpture course at the Academy of Florence and, following the family's move, to that of Venice, where he met his friend Giancarlo Patuzzi. In 1962 he founded the NP2 Group, an acronym that includes the initials of Nerone and Giancarlo Patuzzi: together with other artists they "experimented with new sources of poetic expression from materials". In 1964 Nerone called his brother, Piercarlo Ceccarelli, who until then had been interested in electronic data processing and business organisation, to join the NP2 Group. The intent of the group is to promote the integration of art into architecture together with other professionals, including Luigi Marchisotti, Dedalo Montali, Lucia Petrocchi, Virgilio Petrocchi, Raoul Portal, Jolanda Novi, Piercarlo Iorio, Evian Medici, Luciano Patetta, Nicoletta Medici, Carlo Mollino, Angelo Cortesi. The presence of Piercarlo Ceccarelli proves to be fundamental during the first years of the Group, as he, with his managerial skills and working links with the USA, will be responsible for the promotion of ideas and organizational aspects. Furthermore, thanks to Piercarlo Ceccarelli, sample exhibitions were organized between 1965 and 1967 in cities in the United States and Canada: New York, Philadelphia, Miami, Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Boston, Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal.
