Mirko Basal's biography

- MIRKO BASALDELLA ARTIST

Mirko Basaldella it was one Italian sculptor and painter, brother of the well-known artists Afro and Dino Basaldella. He was born in Udine in 1910 and trained at Art School of Venice, all'Academy of Florence and finally to Monza School of Art.

He is a student at the studio of Arthur Martini until 1933 when he decides to move to Rome where he comes into contact with the artists of Roman school come Cagli, Scipio, Fazzini, Alberti, Mazzacurati It is Leoncillo.

Mirko Basaldella held his first personal exhibition in 1935 at the Comet Gallery, then he takes a trip to Paris which modifies his artistic vision too anchored to the Mediterranean culture. Accompanied by his brother Afro, he discovered the new European artistic trends that were quickly taking shape, remaining decidedly fascinated by them.

Back in Rome, he joins  the Milanese group Chain.
In 1947 he held an exhibition at the Galleria Knoedler in New York, which was so successful that it was repeated for the next two years.

In the following two years, he built 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 mesh and current plastic materials.

The phase that invests it subsequently 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 finds belonging to ancient civilizations such as the Assyrians, Jews, pre-Columbians and the peoples living in Mesopotamia.
Copper and brass were therefore the protagonists until 1960, cut to create particular shapes, at the same time original and influenced by the culture of centuries before.

From 1957 Mirko Basaldella became director of Design Work Shop al 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, who he has the opportunity to study closely and reproduce within his works. The sculpture therefore takes on a double value, a push towards modernity but also a recovery of the archaeological aspect, through a rediscovery of the sacred and almost magical dimension of art.

Over the course of this decade, Mirko Basaldella demonstrates even more his ability to shape all kinds of materials, starting from waste materials to bricks, passing through industrial elements that were also beginning to establish themselves in the art world.
A series of small bronzes and painted woods belong to the latter period, based on biblical episodes and rich in fine cultural references.

Mirko Basaldella died in 1969 in Cambridge.