Fin de siècle

18-3753 — Porta S. Pietro Italy: Giacomo Manzù 1964. Glossy Black and White Photograph: 9.5 inches x 12 inches. Very Good.Original photograph from the collection of Peter Selz who whose article “Giacomo Manzù and his portal for St Peter's†appeared in the December 2001 issue of Sculpture Magazine.Giacomo Manzù a sculptor medalist graphic artist and illustrator was born in Bergamo on December 22 1908. His original name was Giacamo Manzoni. He was an important twentieth-century sculptor of religious statuary.In 1929 Manzù traveled to Paris. He decided to move to Milan in 1930. In his first group exhibitions of the following years he met Carlo Carrà 1881 – 1966. Around the same time Manzù received his first commissions for religious art including statuary for the Catholic University chapel in Milan. In 1934 the artist traveled to Rome to visit St. Peter’s. His visual impressions of this visit became the basis of a bronze of a cardinal in 1938. In 1937 his work was shown in the Galleria della Cometa in Rome. He was assigned his own section of the Venice Biennale of the following year. From 1941 to 1954 he taught at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera in Milan where his first retrospective show was mounted in the Palazzo Reale in 1947. The same year he entered a competition for the design of a door for St. Peter’s in Rome and was awarded the official commission in 1952. The planned theme was "the triumph of the saints and the martyrs of the church" but the door was never executed. From 1954 to 1966 Manzù taught sculpture at the International Summer Academy in Salzburg. He was commissioned to design the main portal of the Salzburg Cathedral in 1955 and Pope John 23rd 1958-1963 asked him to make the "Portal of Death" for St. Peter’s cathedral. Manzù showed his work at the Kassel "documenta" exhibitions 2 and 6 in 1959 and 1977. The Manzù Museum was founded in 1969 in Ardea near Rome. Giacomo Manzù died in Ardea on January 17 1991. Porta S. Pietro, Italy: Giacomo Manzù, 1964. unknown