Dino Basaldella Biography
Dino Aldo Basaldella was born in Udine in 1909. He studied at the Evangelical college of Venice and made his exhibition debut in Udine in 1928 with the group of the Friulian avant-garde school, which also included the brothers, in addition to the painters Filipponi, Grassi , Pittino and Modotto. Subsequently, he moved to Florence in 1928 where he studied the works of Domenico Trentacoste and Libero Andreotti. In 1930 he joined his brother Afro in Rome, where he met Arturo Martini, Scipione and Corrado Cagli.
After graduating in art in Venice and marrying Marcolina Bon in Udine, Basaldella began teaching ornamental and professional design in various locations such as Gemona, Trieste and Muggia, while simultaneously cultivating the goldsmith's art. Basaldella stood out in young Italian sculpture with works of controlled and composed classicism, which combined ancient sources such as Etruscan coroplasty and Hellenistic sculpture with more modern expressive tensions, also filtered by the mannerist tradition. He collaborated regularly with his brothers in painting and sculpture, with a constant exchange of themes and styles.
Towards the end of the 1930s, Basaldella dedicated himself to a new luministic and tonal research, creating figures and portraits with elongated and elegantly rounded shapes. His fortune extended internationally thanks to his solo exhibition at the Catherine Viviano Gallery in New York in 1961 and group exhibitions in Princeton and Pittsburgh. These exposures provided him with an opportunity in the American market, where his younger brothers had already been successful. In 1964, he was invited to the Venice Biennale, where he exhibited fifteen welded iron sculptures in a personal room presented by Giovanni Carendente.
The following year he was called to Ravne, Slovenia, where he installed a large iron sculpture called "The Ear in Ravne", which still dominates the Slovenian Carinthian valley today. In 1961, Basaldella was one of the founders of the Friulian Center for Plastic Arts and in 1963 he obtained the chair of plastic art at the Art Institute of Udine, which he held until 1970. In 1970, Basaldella became holder of the chair of sculpture at the Academy of Brera in Milan. Here he created a perforated panel for the headquarters of the Banca Nazionale del Lavoro and in 1972 he placed an important bronze sculpture at the Alessandro Manzoni elementary school in Cividale. He also created a painted iron work over five meters high for the Kennedy Technical Institute in Pordenone.
In 1973, Basaldella presented a series of works in welded iron at the Rome Quadrennial, summarizing his formal research of the last five years. The same year, he participated in the Antwerp Sculpture Biennial, confirming his presence on the European circuit. In 1975, he sent thirteen works in iron and bronze for the "120 days of sculpture in Trieste" exhibition, which represented his research activity of the last ten years. He died on 7 January 1977 in Udine and his funeral was celebrated in front of the Monument to the Resistance.
