Ugo Guidi Biography
Ugo Guidi (1912 - 1977) was one of the most representative sculptors of the 20th century. Born in Montiscendi-Pietrasanta, in the province of Lucca, after the School of Art he attended the Academy of Fine Arts of Carrara under the sculptor Arturo Dazzi who, appreciating the artistic results achieved, called him to the Academy itself as an assistant. His studies continued until 1936 and in 1937 he obtained the first sculpture prize at the Dervillé Prize in Carrara. From 1948 to 1976 he was a sculpture teacher at the Academy of Fine Arts in Carrara. Only in 1956, at the age of 44, did he exhibit for the first time the works he had created since his youth, with the interest and encouragement of Ottone Rosai and Piero Santi at the "La Strozzina" Gallery in Palazzo Strozzi in Florence. Ugo Guidi tirelessly works with any material but above all the local Porta stone, a tuff, a hard material used in construction, which will characterize all his sculptural production from 1950 to 1965. He is invited to major national exhibitions such as the Milan Biennials, the Quadrennials of Rome, the Fiorino of Florence, the Sculpture Biennials of Carrara, Art and Sport of Florence, the Bronze Biennials of Padua. Since 1958, personal exhibitions have followed one another from Rome to Milan, Turin, Parma, Modena, Potenza, while always previewing the most recent works at the "L'Indiano" Gallery in Florence. The summer wave of Italian culture on holiday brings him closer to many artists but above all to Rosai, Soffici, Funi, Mirko, Maccari, Cagli, Gatto, Dallapiccola, De Grada, Migneco and Treccani. However, his artistic journey was fully realized in his quiet existence in Forte dei Marmi. In 1970 he was appointed Corresponding Academician in the Sculpture section of the Academy of Drawing Arts in Florence. He wins the national competition for a bas-relief entitled "Youth Games" for the Palazzo degli Studi in Sarzana. The knowledge of Artemio Franchi, president of the Italian Football Federation, stimulated him to create numerous works having the game of football as their subject. One hundred of his drawings are in the Uffizi and his works can be found in the Galleries of Modern Art in Rome, Florence, Barcelona and Madrid. Since 2005 his house has become a museum, included among the museums of Tuscany and in the Houses of Memory of the region.
