Eugenio Pellini Biography
Eugenio Pellini (Marchirolo, 17 November 1869 – Milan, 28 May 1934) was an Italian sculptor, initially an exponent of Scapigliatura, who later dedicated himself to more personal and intimate themes. He grew up in Marchirolo, in the province of Varese, and moved to Milan in 1884, where he was hosted by his older brother, Oreste. He is then hired as an apprentice in a marble worker's workshop. In his first Milanese period he approached the socialist ideas of the time and frequented the Scapigliatura scene with great interest. He enrolled at the Brera Academy of Fine Arts, where he became a student of Ambrogio Borghi. In 1891, after having presented the sculpture Child of Nazareth, he obtained a scholarship, thanks to which he made a long trip to Italy and spent a long period in Rome and, then, in Paris where he became acquainted with the works of Medardo Rosso and Auguste Rodin. In 1893 he returned to Milan, dedicating himself exclusively to the activity of a sculptor and obtaining important commissions for monumental or funerary works. He created The Angel of Sorrow for the Macario tomb (1894) and Christ in Gethsemane for the Lardera tomb (1895), both in the Monumental Cemetery of Milan. In 1897 he was awarded the Tantardini Prize for the large sculpture Madre which was then exhibited and awarded at the Universal Exhibition in Paris in 1900 and which would receive further recognition in the following years. Since 1905, he has participated in all the Venice Biennials; he is also present at the Roman Secession and the Brera Triennale, as well as numerous exhibitions abroad. In 1913 he was elected vice president and secretary for the fortieth anniversary exhibition of the well-known Milanese association Famiglia Artistica. He took on this role with great seriousness and passion and thus became the author of a series of very interesting journalistic interventions to understand the cultural climate of the time. Despite having trained in the Scapigliato environment and without ever having denied his sympathies for socialist ideas, he defended the Brera Academy, then the "institutional" art school par excellence - and, therefore, the target of the innovators of the time - enhancing its nature as an "open school" to new energies. He died on 28 May 1934 in his home in Milan, in via Curtatone, now via Siracusa.
