Antonio Masini - Paintings and Sculptures

September 29, 2011 - January 15, 2012

Antonio Masini (Calvello, 9 September 1933 - Potenza, 21 December 2018) is an Italian painter, engraver and sculptor.
He completed classical studies and graduated in law. In 1960 he won the first prize at the National Painting Exhibition "1st Centenary of the Lucan Revolution". In the '70s he was invited to exhibit at Art 6'75 and Art 6'76 in Basel and INCO-Art in Rome (1975). In 1980 he won an International Graphic Prize in Cannes [1] After a first phase linked to themes of rural culture his language becomes functional to the magical research of reality within an ambiguous and asymmetrical figurative universe with a plastic force based on the decomposition of shapes and a chromatic energy of great intensity. [2] His painting recovers the concept of history painting by reappropriation of the persuasive force necessary for any staging aimed at reconstructing the facts on precise temporal coordinates, without renouncing the emotional component, as in the case of the polyptych Fratelli Rosselli, the Polictichus of Balvano, dedicated to the dramatic earthquake of 1980, "Eclisse della ragione" for which it is inspired by the massacre of Sabra and Shatila.
Around the strength of the myth builds a new poetics between the 1990s and 2000s. This phase includes the works Mythos Mensch und Kommunikation and Kunst ohne Grenzen-Art without frontiers presented in Stuttgart and Potsdam in 1995 and 2000, the Andean Trilogy exhibited in Iquique in 2002. In these years he exhibited in several anthologies including in Montréal ( 2004) and Lima (2008).
His works of graphics and painting can be found in various museums and private and public collections in Italy, Germany, Brazil, Poland, Australia, Chile, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Romania, USA, Finland, Canada and Japan.
The plastic energy of his art finds in sculpture renewed expressive forms and new opportunities for representation. Rich and varied is his sculptural production in the first decade of 2000 with bronze and steel works in Italy and abroad, including:
the Monument to the Mujer Emigrante (2001) a large iron sculpture in Iquique (Chile)
The Knights of Balvano (2002), polychrome iron sculpture (400x200x350), in Balvano,
the Monument aos Fundadores (2003), in the city of Olímpia (São Paulo) (Brazil), a steel sculpture commemorating the centenary of the foundation of the city,
the Porta del Gigante in Potenza, bronze sculpture commemorating the reconstruction following the earthquake of 1980, a bronze sculpture in Sydney (2008) dedicated to the theme of emigration and donated by the Basilicata Region to the Italian community in Australia numerous other sculptures exhibited in museums including the MUSMA of Matera