GIORGIO GABELLINI - Cesena, 1918 - 1996.
Funny, witty and biting caricature of GIORGIO DE CHIRICO made in terracotta by GIORGIO GABELLINI in the 1960s.
Timid and reserved man, polite and brilliant, artist for pleasure Giorgio Gabellini owes his artistic fame to the creation of ironic caricatures of personalities from entertainment, sports, art, politics, first drawn on paper but since the sixties made , with ever greater success, in terracotta.
He was one of the protagonists of the most important international exhibitions of caricatural works. Gabellini was known throughout the world for the peculiarity and expressive force of his inspiration which he translated into graphic and plastic forms, with the original and investigative vein of a fine humorist and innate psychologist. He managed to penetrate the essence of the characters he translated into art. Gabellini's caricatures are not born from the copy of a real exhausted and deformed one but are the happy invention of the character stopped in the incandescent image of his personality, without privileged filters. Caricature feeds on synthesis, going straight to the target, neglecting what is not essential: this is why it is judgment, the ability to grasp in the somatic features what is hidden, the heart, the intention, the vanity, what the ancients called Animus.
The lens of humor acts as a filter to Gabellini's "vision of the world": "...I'm not bad, but to make a caricature you have to be loaded...".
Before the war he had also frequented Federico Fellini in Rimini, together with whom he collaborated on several newspapers and magazines, including "Stampa Sera". From 1968 to 1977 he participated in the "International Humor Salon" of Bordighera, winning the Council of Europe Prize. He worked for the Galleria Narciso in Turin and in 1971 he won the 1st prize "Torre d'Oro" at the "International Biennial of Humor in Art" in Tolentino. In 1973 he won the La Ribalta prize at the "International Graphics Exhibition" in Bologna. In 1974 he was invited to prestigious events in Paris and Montreal: the EXPO in the latter set up a personal exhibition of his in the halls of the "Pavillon International de l'Humour". From 1976 he regularly participated in the Imola National Art Biennial and the Humor Exhibition in West Berlin.
In Montreal in 1980 at the congress of the Association of American Cartoonists he was named "Caricaturist of the Year".
An important tribute to the artist is represented by the exhibition held in Cesena in 1990 when the artist was still alive, illustrated by a valuable catalog by Marisa Zattini, with texts, among others, by Domenico Montalto, Romano Pieri, Dionigio Dionigi.
HEIGHT OF TERRACOTTA SCULPTURE APPROX. 30 CM
HEIGHT WITH WOODEN BASE 35 CM - WOODEN BASE CM.17X11