Gerardi Alberto Biography
Alberto Gerardi (1889 - 1965) Sculptor, wrought iron artist and ceramist, born in Rome in 1889. Son of a blacksmith, he learned the art of wrought iron in his father's workshop from a very young age. After attending drawing courses at the evening art school in Via San Giacomo in Rome, he enrolled in the plastic and architecture section of the Museum of Industrial Arts, a pupil of Duilio Cambellotti, of whom he became a friend and collaborator. In 1921 he began to dedicate himself to teaching applied arts and in the same year he exhibited at the Rome Biennale and at the Pesaro Gallery in Milan. Around the beginning of the twenties in Rome he created some large-scale ceramics with the collaboration of the technician Fernando Frigiotti and others in ceramic and wrought iron designed by designer Giovanni Guerrini. In 1923 he presented his iron works at the Pesaro Art Gallery in Milan and in the same year he participated in the Decorative Arts Exhibition in Monza, an experience he renewed in '25, '27 and '30. From 1923 he was called to teach iron art at the Museum of Industrial Arts, where in the mid-1930s he collaborated on the reorganization of the collections. Director first of the professional courses and then of the Museum itself, he left teaching, having reached the age limit, in 1959. In 1926 he was called to present his works at the Exhibition of Modern Art in New York. In 1931 he was at the Quadrennial in Rome and in 1933 at the Triennale in Milan he obtained the Grand Prize of the International Jury. In 1936 he was invited to the Venice Biennale where he was again in 1942, 1948, 1950 and 1956, the year in which he exhibited as well as nine sculptures, two portraits and some jewelery works. He died in Rome in 1965.
