Giorgio Rossi (1892–1963) Asymmetrical Head circa 1930

Giorgio Rossi (1892–1963)
Asymmetrical Male Head, circa 1920–30
Terracotta, unique piece
Height: 34 cm

Giorgio Rossi belongs to that generation of the Novecento (Italian 20th-century art) formed between the late Italian Art Nouveau and the monumental language of the memorials to the fallen of the First World War. As a young sculptor of talent, he immediately confronted the commemorative pathos of his time, marked by heroism and civic rhetoric. Yet, unlike many of his contemporaries, Rossi did not stop at this rhetoric: his language evolved, returning to classicism but reshaping it in a modern, almost metaphysical key.

This terracotta from the 1920s–30s makes this evolution clear: a male head captured in a deforming perspective, deliberately asymmetrical, where naturalistic fidelity turns into a disquieting image of striking modernity. It is no coincidence that in 1930 Rossi exhibited at the Venice Biennale with the Testa di uomo grasso, a work that already signalled the passage beyond realism toward a plastic surrealism, where deformation becomes revelation.

The history of Italy in the 1930s inevitably intertwined with ideologies Rossi never shared. His choice, more moral than political, was to take refuge in teaching at Volterra, the splendid Tuscan city where the tradition of alabaster met his research into terracotta. There, Rossi continued to work, but stepped away from the limelight, avoiding the inevitable compromises with the Fascist regime.

Thus, from beginnings that promised acclaim, Rossi chose artistic and moral integrity, remaining for a time in the shadows. It is precisely this trajectory that makes his rediscovery so compelling today: an artist who, while renouncing the showcases of power, succeeded in building a personal language, uniting Etruscan and Renaissance roots with the restless and modern breath of the Novecento.

Provenance: the work has remained in the artist’s family since his death.

Condition: excellent.

Exhibitions (selection – documented participations of the artist)
– Società di Belle Arti, Florence (1906, 1912–13, 1916–18)
– Mostra d’Arte Sacra, Venice (1920)
– Premio Principe Umberto, La Permanente, Milan (1925)
– Venice Biennale (1930, 1936)
– Giorgio Rossi. Scultore nel secolo breve, Palazzo Panciatichi, Florence (2007)
– Le voci di dentro. La scultura di Giorgio Rossi, Ente Cassa di Risparmio di Firenze (2010)
– Nel segno della Sieve, Pontassieve (2011)
– Volti dal passato, Palazzo Medici Riccardi, Florence (2013)