Nedda Guidi Biography
Nedda Guidi was born in Gubbio in 1927. From a young age she was passionate about painting and drawing, subsequently approaching sculpture through her first experiences in the ceramic factories of Gualdo Tadino. Nedda trova was a true alchemist, innovator of techniques and languages and combined the figure of the expert craftsman with the genius of art. She is not a simple ceramist, but a sculptor fundamental to the evolution of contemporary ceramics.
She graduated in philosophy at the University of Urbino and became a great scholar and writer, dedicated to research on man. The thought of the philosopher John Dewy accompanies his life and his artistic production. Nedda is a continuous experimenter and will shape thin sheets of terracotta among her most fascinating works, which enchant among others Filiberto Menna, curator of her first solo show at the Galleria Numero in Rome in 1964. In the 1950s, when she moved to Rome, Nedda he experiments with three-dimensional plastic forms rich in thick glazes, then transforming them into a 'geometrized figurative' language. He prefers two-dimensional volumes with the strong relief panels of 1960-61. Continuous experimentation and the search for perfection lead her to create geometric modules repeated in organized patterns, combining elements to create new modules or repeatedly merged. Uniform and bold enamelling dominates, from aluminized blacks to dark reds and copy-blues. In the Seventies, he almost completely abolished majolica and dedicated himself to the study of different naturally colored mixtures. The alchemy of oxides mixed directly into the clay replaces the enamels. In the 1980s the modules were simplified and grouped into sculptural structures. Soft colored earths never used before and symbolic geometric shapes come together in solemn and lyrical eternal constructions.
Nedda has participated in numerous important exhibitions and retrospectives, including the artistic ceramic competitions of Gualdo Tadino, the anthology at the Gubbio Ceramics Biennale in 1976 and after forty years in 2016, the Masters of Ceramics in Faenza in 1986, Sì Ceramics at the Galleria dei Serpenti in Rome in 1989, Sculptures in villa at the Villa d'Este in Tivoli in 2006, Homage to Nedda Guidi at the Museum of Ceramics in Montelupo Fiorentino in 2013, Contemporary ceramic sculpture in Italy at the Gallery of Modern Art in Rome in 2015. He has exhibited in Korea, Japan, Turkey, the United States, Australia and Germany.
Nedda Guidi died in Rome in 2015.
