Pietro Cascella (February 2, 1921 – May 18, 2008) was an Italian sculptor. His principal work consisted of large monumental sculptures, including the International Monument to the Victims of Fascism in the Auschwitz II-Birkenau death camp in Poland (1957–1967), and an underground mausoleum for Silvio Berlusconi at his villa in Arcore in the 1980s.[1][2]

Pietro Cascella
Born	February 2, 1921 Pescara, Italy
Died	May 18, 2008 Pietrasanta
Nationality	Italian
Known for	sculpture mosaic
Spouse(s)	Anna Maria Cesarini Sforza Cordelia von den Steinen [it]

Life

Cascella was born into a family of artists in Pescara on February 2, 1921. His father was Tommaso Cascella, a painter and ceramicist, and his mother was Susanna Federman.[2] His elder brother Andrea Cascella [it] was a sculptor.[3][4][5][6] Two of his uncles were also artists, the painter Michele Cascella and painter and ceramicist Gioacchino Cascella, as was his grandfather, the painter, ceramicist, and lithographer Basilio Cascella.[2] In 1945 he married Anna Maria Cesarini Sforza, an artist.[1][7][8] From 1977 he lived with his second wife, Cordelia von den Steinen [it], in the mediaeval Castello della Verrucola [it] in the comune of Fivizzano, above Carrara. He died in Pietrasanta in 2008.[9]

Work

In the late 1930s he moved to Rome and studied at the Accademia di Belle Arti under Ferruccio Ferrazzi, who taught both painting and sculpture.[2] He had work in the Quadriennale di Roma painting exhibition of 1943, and in the twenty-fourth Biennale di Venezia in 1948. He also participated in the 1957 Biennale almost ten years later.[2]

In the years after the Second World War Cascella, with his brother Andrea and various friends, worked in ceramics and mosaic in a brick-works in the Valle dell'Inferno [it], the brick-making district of Rome. In about 1949 he and his wife Cesarini Sforza were commissioned to create mosaics for the third-class waiting-room of the Stazione Termini, the principal railway station of Rome.[1][4] In 1950, the two completed a large mosaic for a Roman cinema, the Cinema America.[10] At about this time he also made small-scale reliefs in various materials, some of them drawing inspiration from the work of Matta, who was a friend.[1]

In 1950–53, Cascella's ceramic work was included in the large American exhibition Italy at Work: Her Renaissance in Design Today.[11]

In 1962, his work was exhibited at the Galleria dell’Obelisco (Rome) in an exhibition of ceramics from that year. Also that year, he had a solo show at the Galleria del Milione (Milan). In 1965, he traveled to New York for a show organized by the Galleria Bonino. The following year, and again in 1972, he had a room at the Biennale. In 1968, his work was presented at the Galèrie  du  Dragon  (Paris) and the Musée d’Ixelles (Bruxelles). In 1971, Cascella participated in the XXIII Salon de la Jeune Sculpture in Paris.[12]

In April 2006, Pietro Cascella was given the Medal of Merit for Culture and Art.[12]  

• 
  Gateway of Peace, 1972, Tel Aviv, Israel
• 
  Nascita, 1973, Middelheim Open Air Sculpture Museum, Antwerp
• 
  Campo del Sole, various artists, 1985–1989, central sculpture; Tuoro sul Trasimeno, Umbria
• 
  Il Teatro della GerminazioneMonte Salviano, Abruzzo

References

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