Ettore Colla biography

Ettore Colla was an Italian sculptor and painter and one of the main protagonists of Italian abstractionism. He was born in Parma in 1896. From 1913, he attended the Academy of Fine Arts of Parma and in 1918 he enlisted in the Bersaglieri corps and participated in the First World War, where he was seriously injured. In 1923, he moved to Paris where he attended the studios of important sculptors including Bourdelle, Brancusi, and Laurens. In 1926, he returned to Italy and moved to Rome where he opened his studio. He began his career as a sculptor initially influenced by the Novecento group and Arturo Martini.
In 1930, he exhibited at the XVII Biennale di Venezia and in 1936 obtained the chair of ornamental modeling at the art high school in Naples. From 1941, his first explorations into abstract art began. In 1950, together with Mario Balocco, Alberto Burri, and Giuseppe Capogrossi, he founded the group Origine, an abstract art movement that later became a gallery in Rome, expressing its viewpoints through the periodical Arti Visive.
The sculpture from this period is the most significant of his entire artistic production and is characterized by the use of reclaimed elements, predominantly in iron, for the creation of abstract, albeit sometimes allusive, assemblages.
In 1955, he participated in the VII Quadriennale di Roma and, in the same city, two years later held a solo exhibition at the galleria La Tartaruga. In the following years, he participated in numerous national and international group exhibitions.
In 1964, he participated in the XXXII Venice Biennale with an exhibition room, marking the official recognition of the artist's work. In 1966, together with Capogrossi, Fontana, Leoncillo, Pasmore, he founded the magazine QUI arte contemporanea, published by Editalia.
Ettore Colla dies in Rome, in his house on Viale Parioli, on December 28, 1968.