Bronze bust of Dora Bassi 1970 by Alessandro Manzoni

Brown bust of Dora Bassi 1970 by Alessandro Manzoni, half-length portrait with a moustache and a pleased expression. The bronze cast has a beautiful dark patina and is mounted on a black marble base, signed on the right corner of the Bassi coat collar, 1970. In perfect condition.

The work of artist DORA BASSI (1921-2007), a Friulian sculptor and painter, was the subject and witness of major artistic movements of the post-war period. She enrolled at the Academy of Fine Arts in Florence (1939) and Venice (1941-1944), studying under Felice Carena and Giuseppe Cesetti, learning about 20th-century Italian art and the plasto-constructive function of color. Immediately after the war, she joined neorealism, emerging from the roots of the fading New Front of Art, and later became part of the Florentine group “Numero,” which gathered leading figures of abstract art. In the 1960s, she opened a studio-laboratory in Udine to create sculptures and bas-reliefs from terracotta, later working with bronze, iron, and steel for various public and private clients.

Professor of sculpture at the Academy of Brera (1971-1991), she participated in experimental educational renewal programs. Besides her ongoing artistic production and exhibitions in Italy and abroad, Dora Bassi also engaged in intensive research and studies on contemporary art. She writes for magazines and catalogs, dedicating herself to promoting lesser-known artists in Italy such as Charlotte Salomon, Leonor Fini, Leonora Carrington, Remedios Varo, Georgia O’Keeffe, Jenny Holzer. Until 1991, she led the DARS group (Woman Art Research and Experimentation). Since the 1980s, her stylistic code has influenced her painting and sculpture, ultimately leading to works of great technical refinement. She passed away in Udine in 2007.

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