Alberto Colognato (Verona 1912 - Milano 1996)

Alberto Colognato (Verona 1912 - Milan 1996) Apulian woman Terracotta and wooden base 35 x 23 x 129 cm Dated 10/02/1949. Authentication by the artist on photo. From the Archivio Scultura Veronese dell'800 e del'900: He was born in Verona on August 2, 1912, into a family of humble origins (his father was a railroader) and was indulged by his mother in his precocious inclination for art. He attended the School of Applied Art for Industry and later the Cignaroli Academy, where he graduated in 1932. He joined, under the pseudonym "il Biondo," a small group of young avant-garde Veronese artists eager for renewal, including painters Mario Bolognini and Vittorio Bragantini, sculptors Mario Salazzari, Censo Funichelli and Berto Zampieri, poet Quirino Sacchetti and others. He began his artistic career as a painter, exhibiting in some group shows in Verona, despite his reluctance to self-promotion and commodification of art. During World War II, despite being recalled to the army of the Italian Social Republic, he joined the Resistance in 1943 and became one of the most convinced promoters of the Verona G.A.P. After the war he moved to Milan, because of the intense cultural and artistic life the city was experiencing at that time, and switched to sculpture, a path he had already been on for a few years, with great attention to the choice of materials with which he executed his works. In the Milanese milieu he met numerous figures in the cultural life of the time among artists, art critics and writers, such as fellow citizen Renato Birolli, Mario De Micheli, Raffaele de Grada, Ernesto Treccani, and Salvatore Quasimodo. He married painter Luigia Zanfretta, a teacher at the Hajech art high school and the Brera Academy. Because of his political and civic commitment, his anti-commercial conception of art and his shy nature, he exhibited his works rarely and only in group exhibitions for social and solidarity purposes; on very few occasions he sold or gave them away. Unable to see his wish to return to Verona fulfilled, he died in Milan on June 7, 1996. His hometown celebrated him in 2001 with a solo exhibition, probably the only one of his artistic career, held at the Galleria dello Scudo. Alberto Colognato (Verona 1912 - Milan 1996) Apulian Woman Terracotta and wooden base 35 x 23 x 129 cm Dated 10/02/1949. Artist's authentication on photo.