Giovanni De Martino (1870 – 1935)
Boy with Amphora and Crab
Bronze, height 117 cm
Giovanni De Martino (Naples, January 13, 1870 – Naples, March 3, 1935) was an Italian sculptor active in Paris. De Martino was a classic artist, known for producing small bronze busts, particularly portraits of the characteristic "scugnizzi" (street urchins), fishermen, and working-class women with realistic features. He trained at the Academy of Fine Arts in Naples under the guidance of Stanislao Lista, Gioacchino Toma, and Achille D'Orsi: from the latter, he learned the ability to portray the most veristic details, applying them to very young subjects. Very young, he moved to Paris where he created small sculptural groups, frequently exhibiting at the Paris Salon, where he won the Louvre Museum prize for the bronze work Le Pêcheur de criquets (The Locust Fisherman, Naples, private collection). Returning to Naples, he reverted to socialist realism and produced sculptures depicting characteristic Neapolitan types, especially street urchins, little boys, and young fishermen. From 1916 to 1931, he was the teacher of the sculptor Angelo Frattini. Subsequently, the dominant theme of his production was childhood, in particular, his works represented thoughtful, sad, gaunt children whose faces showed signs of abandonment and suffering. De Martino became known by the nickname "The Sculptor of Children". He took part in numerous national and international exhibitions, particularly between 1900 and 1929: he exhibited in Naples from 1892, in Paris from 1900, in St. Petersburg in 1902, in Rome in 1903, in Venice in 1905, and in Rimini in 1909 and later in 1922, 1924, and 1928 in Monaco. In 1916, a sculpture titled Pensive Girl was purchased by the regional art gallery of the Academy of Fine Arts in Naples. He participated several times in the Venice Biennale (1907, 1922, 1924, 1928, 1930). In 1929 he exhibited at the exhibitions of the Syndicate of Fine Arts of Campania, and he was also present at the Società Promotrice di Belle Arti (Society for the Promotion of Fine Arts) in Naples in 1910 and at the Florentine Spring Exhibition in Florence in 1922. His adolescent and childhood themes are rendered with such extraordinary effectiveness that Benito Mussolini himself was strongly fascinated by them during the Rome Quadrennial of 1931 (January-June), in which he presented with the friends "Italian artists of Paris" including: Gino Severini, Filippo de Pisis, Massimo Campigli. De Martino's works are present in some national and international museums: the Louvre Museum, the Civic Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art Castello di Masnago, in Varese, the Michelangelo Buonarroti Birthplace Museum, Caprese Michelangelo, in Arezzo, the Gallery of the Academy of Naples, the Federico Zeri Foundation Museum, University of Bologna, the M.A.X. museum, Collezione Comune di Chiasso, Switzerland, Fortunato Calleri Museum of Catania.
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