Marcello Fantoni Artwork valuations, appraisals and auction estimates

Marcello Fantoni, sculptor, medalist and ceramist, was born in Florence in 1915 and studied in his city at the Porta Romana Art Institute, a student of, among others, Libero Andreotti, Bruno Innocenti, Gianni Vagnetti and Carlo Guerrini. After his years of training, starting from 1934, he worked in various ceramic laboratories and factories including the "Cantagalli" in Florence, took on the role of artistic director of a small ceramic factory in Perugia and in 1936 opened his own workshop called "Fantoni Ceramiche", in via Luigi Lanzi 2 in Florence, where it produces both serial furnishing ceramics and sculpture and artistic ceramics. Read the full biography

Marcello Fantoni, sculptor, medalist and ceramist, was born in Florence in 1915 and studied in his city at the Porta Romana Art Institute, a student of, among others, Libero Andreotti, Bruno Innocenti, Gianni Vagnetti and Carlo Guerrini. After his years of training, starting from 1934, he worked in various ceramic laboratories and factories including the "Cantagalli" in Florence, took on the role of artistic director of a small ceramic factory in Perugia and in 1936 opened his own workshop called "Fantoni Ceramiche", in via Luigi Lanzi 2 in Florence, where it produces both serial furnishing ceramics and sculpture and artistic ceramics. In 1937 he presented some ceramics from his production at the VII National Crafts Exhibition in Florence, attracting public attention for his rustic-style works decorated with African and marine landscapes animated by stylized figures painted in enamel. Subsequently he opened a collaboration with "CIMA" and between the end of the 1930s and the early 1940s he created models for the Perugian manufacturer "La Salamandra". The war years saw him as a partisan in the mountains and in the early post-war years he found employment at the "Maioliche Deruta" factory. In the 1950s he started his own business again in the premises at number 45 in via Lanzi, in Florence where he began to dedicate himself to the creation of large sculptures. A great experimenter of matter, he is an interpreter of different artistic currents from Twentieth Centuryism to Primitivism, from Cubism to Abstractionism up to the Informal and Minimalism of his latest works. Starting in 1970, in his studio, he founded the International School of Ceramic Art and dedicated himself to teaching and experimenting with high-temperature firing. In 2000, Florence dedicated a large anthological exhibition to him entitled "Ceramics as Art, Marcello Fantoni, ceramist and sculptor" set up in the Salone delle Regie Poste and in 2005 the Archaeological Museum of Fiesole dedicated an important solo exhibition to him entitled "Marcello Fantoni, a beautiful shape with a beautiful color". Marcello Fantoni died in Florence in 2011