MIRKO BASALDELLA ARTWORKS

Mirko Basaldella was an Italian sculptor and painter, brother of the well-known artists Afro and Dino Basaldella. He was born in Udine in 1910 and trained at the Liceo Artistico in Venice, at the Academy of Florence and finally at the School of Art in Monza . He was a student at the studio of Arturo Martini until 1933 when he decided to move to Rome where he came into contact with the artists of the Roman School such as Cagli, Scipione, Fazzini, Alberti, Mazzacurati and Leoncillo.
Mirko Basaldella held his first solo exhibition in 1935 at the Galleria La Cometa, then made a trip to Paris which modified his artistic vision too anchored to Mediterranean culture. Accompanied by his brother Afro, he discovered the new European artistic trends that were rapidly emerging, and was decidedly fascinated by them.
After returning to Rome, he joined the Milanese group Corrente.
In 1947 he held an exhibition at the Knoedler Gallery in New York, which achieved such success that it was repeated for the following two years.
In the following two years he created the three gates of the Fosse Ardeatine, a bronze creation that is striking for its grandeur and attention to detail.
His is a continuous research aimed at modernity, which leads him to abandon traditional materials in favor of more innovative elements, such as iron wires combined with concrete, metal nets and the current plastic materials.
The phase that subsequently affects him is interesting, imbued with oriental culture and exotic influences. Mirko Basaldella's production is therefore enriched by totems, subjects dating back to mythical iconography and reconstructions of artefacts belonging to ancient civilizations such as the Assyrians, the Jews, the pre-Columbians and the peoples of Mesopotamia.
Acting as protagonists until 1960 they are therefore copper and brass, cut to create particular shapes, at the same time original and influenced by the culture of centuries before.
Since 1957 Mirko Basaldella has become director of the Design Work Shop at the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts , at the University of Cambridge, opening up to the technological and mechanical influence that was permeating America in those years. However, his artistic research certainly could not miss a reference to the Red Indians, which he had the opportunity to study closely and re-propose within his works. Sculpture therefore takes on a double value, of pushing towards modernity but also of recovering the archaeological aspect, through a rediscovery of the sacred and almost magical dimension of art.
During this decade Mirko Basaldella showed even more his ability to shape every kind of material, starting from waste materials up to bricks, passing through the industrial elements that were also starting to establish themselves in the world of art. To this last period belong a series of small bronzes and painted woods, based on biblical episodes and rich in fine cultural references.
Mirko Basaldella died in 1969 in Cambridge.