Pietro Cascella biography
PIETRO CASCELLA BIOGRAPHY
Pietro Cascella was an Italian painter and sculptor born in Pescara on February 2, 1921, and died in 2008 in Pietrasanta. Coming from a family of artists, he began to cultivate the same passion as his grandfather Basilio (1860-1950) and his sculptor father Tommaso (1890-1968) from a young age, growing up in a family of artists where his brother Andrea and uncles Gioacchino and Michele also followed the same artistic paths as their relatives. Pietro thus represented the third generation of the Cascella family, which has now reached the fifth generation thanks to his nephew Matteo Basilè, born in 1974. The artist grew up with the teachings of his father and grandfather, both painters and ceramists, within a lithographic factory in Pescara; soon, this place would become the artistic site of the Cascella family where Pietro himself, thanks to the numerous tools at his disposal, would learn all those techniques that would eventually make him a unique painter and sculptor.
The young Cascella begins with painting, and then he will also become passionate about sculpture when he moves from Pescara to Rome in 1938: it is here that he will attend, together with his brother Andrea and other friends, the courses of Ferrazzi Ferruccio, an artist and teacher at the Academy of Fine Arts. Also in the capital, he will start frequenting the so-called Valle dell'Inferno kiln, a place where he will specialize in working with ceramics in all its forms. In the years immediately following, Pietro Cascella will devote himself to the artistic activities offered at Osteria Fratelli Menghi, one of the most famous and important meeting places for painters, sculptors, poets, musicians, and directors that existed between the '40s and the '70s."}
It is precisely here that Pietro Cascella will meet his future wife, Anna Maria Cesarini Sforza, a mosaicist from Trentino, with whom he will have three children: Tommaso, Susanna, and Benedetta. In 1943, he will participate in the IV edition of the Quadriennale di Roma, one of the most important contemporary art exhibitions ever.
In 1948, right after the war, Cascella will take part in the very first edition of the Venice Biennale, where he will return a few years later. In the 1950s, together with his brother Andrea and his mosaicist wife Anna Maria, he will collaborate on the creation of mosaics in honor of the so-called Cinema America hall in Rome.
During this period, Pietro Cascella will begin to develop a passion for sculpture and will be strongly influenced by the Chilean artist Roberto Sebastian Matta (1911-2002): from him, the young man will learn to sculpt following the most popular surrealist trends and styles of the time. His sculpting activity will lead him to win an important competition organized by the Venice Biennale, in which he will participate a second time in 1956: it is the Monument of Auschwitz signed by Cascella himself along with architect Giorgio Simoncini. The project was initially followed by the artist, his brother Andrea, and designer Julio Lafuente, but later Pietro decided to take it in other directions; the monument was then inaugurated in 1967 at Birkenau, one of the many places where many victims of the Shoah rest. This artwork was selected, among 426 different proposals, by important personalities of the International Auschwitz Committee such as Dmitri Shostakovich, Carlo Levi, and Pablo Casals. The jury also included the poet Henry Moore and the famous art critic Lionello Venturi, who highlighted how the monument by Cascella and Simoncini represents a dramatic symbol of modern history, a history whose traces unfortunately cannot be erased. It is considered one of the most important works ever by the sculptor from Pescara."
During the '60s and '70s, Pietro Cascella dedicated himself to creating numerous personal works, both in painting and sculpture, which he then exhibited in prestigious Italian and European galleries. In '62, he showcased his ceramic projects at the Galleria dell'Obelisco in Rome, and later moved them to the Galleria del Milione in Milan; in 1965, he went to exhibit in New York at the Galleria Bonino, and then again in '66 and '72, he returned as a special guest at the Venice Biennale. In '68, Cascella also went to the Galèrie du Dragon in Paris and the Musée d'Ixelles in Brussels. In '71, the artist participated in the XXIII Salon de la Jeune Sculpture in the French capital, then moved to the Palais de Beaux Arts in Brussels and finally held a large and very personal exhibition at the Rotonda della Besana in Milan. In '66, during his numerous travels, he met his second and future wife Cordelia von den Steinen, a famous Swiss sculptor with whom he had his second son Jacopo; he too would become an artist like the rest of the Cascella family.
From the 1980s until his death, Pietro Cascella focused particularly on the art of sculpture, working on monumental urban projects: among these, we remember the Arch of Peace in Tel Aviv, the Gate of Wisdom in Pisa, the so-called Ship Fountain in Pescara, and the monument dedicated to Mazzini in Milan. It is here that his poetics took on a true meaning: his sculptures tended towards cubism and geometric purism, and were almost always made with travertine marble and polished stones. On April 20, 2006, the artist received the important title of the Gold Medal for Meritorious Service to Art and Culture. Additionally, he was also awarded the Order of Minerva at the Gabriele D'Annunzio University of his hometown, Pescara.
On May 18, 2008, he will pass away in Pietrasanta. His remains will be laid to rest at the San Silvestro cemetery in Pescara, where other artist family members also rest. For the tenth anniversary of his death, the project Fuga dal Museo a Pescara is inaugurated, entirely dedicated to the most significant sculptural works of Pietro Cascella. Other creations of his are preserved and displayed at the Museo civico Basilio Cascella.
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