Lucchesi - Modeling the Figure in Clay

WATSON-GUPTILL PUBLICATIONS/NEW YORK

Copyright 1980 by Bruno Lucchesi and Margit Malmstrom

All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Watson-Guptill
Publications, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group,
a division of Random House, Inc.
www.crownpublishing.com
www.watsonguptill.com

WATSON-GUPTILL is a registered trademark and the WG and Horse designs are trademarks of Random House, Inc., New York

Originally published in hardcover in the United States by Watson-Guptill Publications, New York, in 1980.

Library of Congress Control Number: 2010928079

ISBN 978-0-8230-3096-5
eBook ISBN: 978-0-307-78641-8

Design by Bob Fillie, Graphiti Graphics

30th Anniversary Edition

v3.1

This book is dedicated to
every sculptor who ever transformed
a humble ball of clay into that miracle
of beauty, the human form .

The author wishes to thank Jennifer and Jim Collins. They know why.

Bruno Lucchesi was born in 1926 in the village of Fibbiano, high in the mountains of Tuscany, in the province of Lucca, Italy. His family, like all the villagers, were farmers and shepherds; they raised the food they ate and made the clothes they wore, and as a boy Bruno took his turn on the steep mountainsides to tend the sheep. But young Lucchesis artistic gifts were early recognized and he went to study art in Lucca and later in nearby Florence. When not in school, Bruno prowled the streets and museums of Florence and learned by heart the lessons of the greatest masters of Renaissance art. He was especially drawn to the architecture of Brunelleschi and Alberti, the sculpture of Tino di Camaino and Donatello, and the work of the Mannerist painters Pontormo and II Rosso.

In 1957 Lucchesi came to the United States, where his sculpture was a radical departure from what was being seen at the time. His work springs directly from the nourishing Tuscan soil and the long tradition of Italian Renaissance art. It is realistic, approachable, understandable, and executed with consummate skill. It is beautiful in its grace of line and expression. And, in addition, it has an intimacy and a sense of pathos and humor that are completely contemporary. The excellence of Lucchesis work was instantly recognized, and over the years his sculptures have been added to the collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art, The Brooklyn Museum, the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, The John and Mabel Ringling Museum of Art in Sarasota, Florida, The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, and the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C., among others. His work is also well represented in many private collections, among them the Albert A. List Collection. He has received awards from the National Academy, which elected him Member in 1975, the National Arts Club, and the Architectural League, and he was a Guggenheim Fellow in 196263.

Lucchesi is perhaps best known for his smaller figures and his genre sculptures, but he also does many major commissioned pieces that are lifesize and larger. Among these are his heroic-size bust of the poet Walt Whitman, installed in 1971 in Arrow Park, Monroe, New York, andmost recentlya heroic-size statue of Sir Walter Raleigh commissioned by the city of Raleigh, North Carolina, installed in 1976.

Lucchesi lives in New York, where he takes time out from creating new work to teach packed classes at the New School and the National Academy.

The sculpture of Bruno Lucchesi may be seen on permanent display at the Forum Gallery in New York, which has been his exclusive dealer since 1960.

GIRL CUTTING TOENAILS
Bronze, 13" (33 cm) high
Private collection
Photo Marvin Bolotsky

GIRL ON CHAIR
Terracotta bas-relief 17" 11" (43 28 cm)
Photo Malmstrom

AT THE FOUNTAIN
Terracotta, 18" (46 cm) high
Photo Marvin Bolotsky

STANDING NUDE
Bonded bronze, lifesize
Private collection
Photo Walter Russell

NUDE ON PILLOW
Bronze, 25" (64 cm) long
Private collection
Photo Walter Russell

MODEL RESTING
Bronze, 15" (38 cm) high
Private collection
Photo Marvin Bolotsky

STRIPTEASE
Epoxy, 36" 23" (91 58 cm).
Private collection
Photo Malmstrom