Umberto Zimelli Biography
Ceramist, painter and set designer Umberto Zimelli was born in Forlì in 1898 where he studied at the School of Arts and Crafts, completing his training at the Academy of Fine Arts in Ravenna, a student of Giovanni Guerrini. He approached ceramics by collaborating, starting from the early twenties, with the "Borromeo" ceramic factory in Isola Bella on Lake Maggiore. Between 1922 and 1930, he also collaborated with the Albisola ceramic factory "MGA", owned by Giuseppe Mazzotti, where in the first months of 1930 he collaborated with Nino Strada on the experimentation of vitrified bodies and the application of thick glazes. In 1926 he began his teaching activity which saw him teaching at the Professional School of Art and at the Umanitaria of Milan, and from 1933 at the ISIA (Istituto Superiore Industrie Artistiche) of Monza. After the Second World War, after leaving teaching, he settled permanently in Milan where he held some solo ceramic exhibitions at the Gianferrari Gallery in 1947, '49, '51 and in 1953, the year in which he also exhibited at the Cairola Gallery. In the same years he designed some ceramics for the Albisola factory "Pier Luca Ceramiche" owned by Bepi Mazzotti and founded his own factory, "Zimelli Ceramiche", based in Milan in via Macedonio Melloni 22. In 1950 he took part, out of competition, in the Faenza Award. In the second half of the 1950s he began to frequent Silvano Taiuti's furnace. Umberto Zimelli died in Milan in 1972.
