Giuseppe Mazzullo Biography
Giuseppe Mazzullo (Marzullo) (Graniti, 15 February 1913 – Taormina, 25 August 1988) was an Italian artist and sculptor. He was born in Graniti (ME) in 1913. He graduated from the "Pietro Vannucci" Academy of Fine Arts in Perugia in 1932 and in 1939 he moved to Rome to teach first at the Art Institute and from 1959 onwards at the Academy of Fine Arts. A very skilled designer, he cultivated a passion for working with stone since he was a child and so, although he did not disdain working with clay, bronze or wood, his sculptures took shape mainly from boulders recovered from the beds of streams or in quarries. . He was the protagonist of personal and collective exhibitions all over the world; he participated in four editions of the Venice Biennale (1950, 1952, 1954, 1966 with a personal room presented by Marcello Venturoli) and eight editions of the Rome Quadrennial (1935, 1939, 1943, 1948, 1952, 1956, 1960 with a personal room presented by Ferruccio Ulivi, 1972). During the Nazi occupation and in the post-war period, his house in Via Sabazio was a meeting place for artists and intellectuals of every professional, ideological and thought direction such as, among many others, Renato Guttuso, Pietro Consagra, Roberto Matta, Renzo Vespignani, Roberto Melli, Cesare Zavattini, Rafael Alberti, Giuseppe Ungaretti, Vann'Antò, Stefano D'Arrigo. In the mid-seventies, after leaving teaching at the Academy, Mazzullo returned definitively to Sicily; on the slopes of Etna he organized a large laboratory in which he was able to create the last phase of his sculptures, in lava stone and granite, some of monumental dimensions. He died in Taormina in 1988. Due to the complexity and quality of his sculptures he is considered a unique figure in the artistic panorama of the twentieth century. His works are held in prestigious public and private collections around the world.
