Francesco Nonni Biography
Francesco Nonni (1885-1976) painter, decorator, illustrator and xylographer born in Faenza, began his artistic activity, while still a boy, as an apprentice carver at the "Ebanisteria Cooperativa Canalini" in Faenza, simultaneously attending the Municipal School of Arts and Crafts "Minardi" where he met Domenico Baccarini and became a regular visitor to his "cenacle". He achieved his first successes as an engraver by exhibiting some works at the Turin Quadrennial in 1908. The following year he enrolled in the Scuola Libera di Nudo of the Academy of Fine Arts in Florence. He took part in the Venice Biennale of 1910, the "Rome 1911" exhibition and again at the Venice Biennales of 1912 and 1914. In 1915 he obtained his teaching qualification and began teaching at the "Minardi" drawing school in Faenza . Prisoner in Germany during the First World War, he returned to civilian life profoundly changed. Having returned to Faenza he dedicated himself to teaching plastic and carving at the Minardi school, in 1919 he approached ceramics at the invitation of Pietro Melandri, and began to collaborate with Paolo Zoli's furnace, the "Faience", where he molded figurines in terracotta that Melandri decorates. At the same time he expanded his experience by collaborating with other Faenza kilns. His most fruitful period, from 1920 to 1925, saw him experiment with a typically deco repertoire made up of female figurines in eighteenth-century dresses, ladies, odalisques, pierrots and exotic animals. With Anselmo Bucci he created a famous and delightful "Wedding Procession" of 23 pieces in polychrome ceramic exhibited at the Paris Expo in 1925 and awarded a silver medal. Between 1924 and 1926 he founded and directed the magazine "Xilografia" and collaborated as an illustrator with some publishing houses. From the end of the 1930s onwards Francesco Nonni gradually abandoned his ceramic production, dedicating himself mainly to oil painting and in the 1950s to ivory inlay.
