In the shadow of sculpture

 

Mario Negri, All’ombra della scultura, ed. by Stefano Crespi, All’Insegna del Pesce d’Oro, Milan 1985

N.d.A.

 

I began as an art book reviewer.
Having gained some experience, little by little, I started writing about artists of my choice, and certain exhibitions of antique and modern art. This activity, deliberately, was brought to a close at the time of my first solo show in the spring of 1957 at Galleria del Milione, 21 Via Bigli, in Milan. It was absolutely not possible for me to reconcile the activity as a “part-time” critic with that of the full-time sculptor.
So I almost wrote nothing more, in that sense, other than a piece for the occasion of the death of Alberto Giacometti, one for the exhibition in Milan on Medardo Rosso and a note, as yet unpublished, on Amedeo Modigliani the sculptor, in 1981-82.
In any case, I still regret not having continued to write about many other sculptors I care about and who would form, so to speak, my private imaginary museum: Benedetto Antelami, Giovanni Pisano, Arnolfo di Cambio, Tino di Camaino, Jacopo della Quercia, Agostino di Duccio, Claus Sluter; Géricault as sculptor, Daumier as sculptor; Rodin, Gaudier-Brzeska, George Minne, Ernesto De Fiori, Oskar Schlemmer, Henri Laurens, Jacques Lipchitz, Charles Despiau, Picasso as sculptor, Matisse as sculptor; Johannis Avramidis, Eduardo Chillida.

 

M.N.

 

Milan, 10 February 1985