ETTORE COLLA
Ettore Colla was an Italian sculptor and painter and one of the main figures of Italian abstract art. 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, being seriously wounded. 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 activity as a sculptor initially influenced by the Novecento group and by Arturo Martini.
In 1930 he exhibits at the XVII Venice Biennale and in 1936 he obtains the chair of modeled ornament at the Naples art high school. From 1941 his first researches towards abstract art begin. In 1950 he co-founds with Mario Balocco, Alberto Burri and Giuseppe Capogrossi the group Origine, an abstract art movement that later becomes a gallery in Rome expressing its viewpoints through the periodical Arti Visive.
The sculpture of this period is the most significant of his entire artistic production and is characterized by the use of recovered elements, mainly iron, for the creation of abstract assemblages although, sometimes, allusive.
In 1955 he participates in the VII Rome Quadriennale and, in the same city, two years later holds a solo exhibition at the La Tartaruga gallery. In the following years he takes part in numerous national and international group exhibitions.
In 1964 he participates in the XXXII Venice Biennale with a curated room, marking the official recognition of the artist's work. In 1966 he co-founds with Capogrossi, Fontana, Leoncillo, Pasmore the magazine QUI contemporary art, published by Editalia.
Ettore Colla dies in Rome, in his house on Viale Parioli, on December 28, 1968.
