Medardo Rosso Biography
Medardo Rosso (Turin, 21 June 1858 – Milan, 31 March 1928) was an Italian sculptor, an important exponent of Italian impressionism. Medardo Rosso was born in Turin in 1858. He moved with his family to Milan in 1870. From 1882 to 1883 he attended the Brera Academy of Fine Arts where he proved intolerant of academic teaching. He began his artistic career in the Milanese scapigliatura. In 1885 he married Giuditta Pozzi and in the same year they had a son, who was the only one, Francesco Rosso. The marriage foundered already in 1889. In 1889 he went to Paris where he came into contact with impressionist artists. He returned to Milan in 1914, where he died in 1928 following an infection due to a blood problem. He created mainly sculptures in wax, but also in bronze, terracotta, plaster and pencil and color drawings. He put many unusual things in his “doughs”. He exhibited his works in Paris at the Salon des Artistes Francais, at the Salon des Independents, in the Gallerie Thomas and Georges Petit, and in Vienna in 1885. He created some busts for the monumental cemetery of Milan. In 1886 he exhibited in London and Venice and in 1889 at the Universal Exhibition in Paris. He was esteemed among his contemporaries by Edgar Degas and Auguste Rodin. He subsequently influenced artists such as Boccioni, Carrà and Manzù. In 1920 he exhibited the Sick Child, the Jewish Child, The Portinaia and the Ecce Puer, all works created some time before, at the Exhibition of Sacred Art in Venice, limiting himself, with a certain irreverence, to changing the name to San Giovannino, San Luigi , Saint Ursula and Child of Nazareth. Medardo Rosso stated: Ce qui importe pour moi en art, c'est de faire oublier la matière ("I, in art, am interested above all in making the matter forget"), in fact his sculptures are made up of "unfinished" forms ", which seem to suggest the presence of the surrounding environment. He died on the evening of March 31, 1928 assisted by his son Francesco. He is buried in the monumental cemetery of Milan.
