… An artist barely paid for the great skill that offers …
(Beniamino Gigli)
The collections of the National Museums ofLucca enrich today with seven woodenpanels carved between 1965 and 1966 bythe sculptor Inaco Biancalana (Viareggio1912-1991), donated by Graziano Grazziniwho commissioned those works in 1965.The panels created to adorn thefurnishings of his pastry with subjects dearto him, taken from ancient Rome’s history,are unique in the production of the artist.Because of the subjects offered, the panelsare presented in the museum in the areadedicated to the Roman Lucca. The intentis to make them dialogue with ancientworks of art on display. Some of the detailscarved by Inaco Biancalana, can be easilycompared with the marble reliefs of theMuseum. The seat on which the emperorNero is sitting, for example, recalls the“curule chair”, symbol of the Romanmagistracy, the same chair appears in amarble slab with a latin inscription. Thesenator with the scroll in his hand is similarto a figure on a sarcophagus fragment. Thegladiator with the circular shield recalls theimage of the soldiers represented in thefunerary relief with banquet scene, andfinally, the figure of the matron has behindher the reconstructed environments of adomus with mosaic floors and terracottadecorations.
Inaco Biancalana was born in Viareggio, onSeptember 24th, 1921. His father, a sailorand then a tinsmith, was able to get himjust a primary school education. Inaco wentto work in a barber shop, but instead ofconcentrating on his job, he preferred todevote himself to drawing. The interest indrawing and carving started as a child,watched his grandfather, nicknamed ‘Man-gialegno’, literally ‘wood eater’, carving smallwood boats, and then later as a young boy,while he watched the laborious work ofshipwrights during the making of smallboats in the bay of Viareggio. Among themwas his future father in law, called the ‘Mori-no’, and Natale Marinai, a woodcarver who,late in life, donated as a gift his workingtools to the young Inaco. His family did notencouraged his artistic interests, but themeeting with his future wife Livia, was a realturning point in the life of the young artist.She shared with him his passion for drawing:
was thanks to her that Inaco decided to de-vote himself to sculpture. In 1939, the twowere married, the couple had three children:Giuseppe, Leandro, who died at the age ofthirty-eight years after a short period dedi-cated to painting, and Clara. In 1941, GiuliaViani, wife of the painter Lorenzo Viani, pro-moted the first exhibition of the works ofInaco in the premises of the Hotel “Principedi Piemonte”. His first major assignmentscame after the war, thanks to the futureMinister for Public Works Giovanni Pieraccini,the Agnelli family and the famous tenor Be-niamino Gigli, who, after visiting the exhibi-tion that Inaco had set up in 1945 in ViaCondotti in Rome, said about him that hewas “An artist barely paid for the great skillthat offers”. In the same years he realizedthe busts of Stalin (purchased by the SovietEmbassy in Rome), Roosevelt (donated bythe city of Viareggio to the American officerof the area) and Churchill (purchased by aprivate collection), using the wood of aplane shot down in Piazza delle Paure in
Viareggio. Meanwhile, the Biancalana familymoved from the house in which they lived,belonged to the tragic actor Ermete Zacconi,near the Canal Burlamacca, to a councilhouse in the Dock, where the sculptorcreated his first studio in the basement ofthe building in 1960. His second studio washoused in a room, always in the area of thedock, which still exists today. These werethe years in which he refused many joboffers received from abroad and from Mon-tecassino (where he was called for therestoration of wooden works damaged bythe bombs of the Second World War). Hedecided not to accept those assignments,for his attachment to Viareggio and to hisfamily. Even the visit in his study of theAmerican director John Huston in 1967,during the filming of his movie The Agonyand the Ecstasy based on the life of Michelan-gelo, did not made him change his mind.The activity of Inaco continued until hisdeath, which took place in Viareggio onApril the 14th 1991.
Soprintendenza per i BeniArchitettonici, Paesaggistici, Storici,Artistici ed Etnoantropologici per leProvince di Lucca e Massa CarraraMuseo nazionale di Villa Guinigi
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1. Inaco Biancalana in his studio2. The artist’s studio in Via E. Janco inViareggio
3. Inaco Biancalana with his wife and hisdaughter at the opening of the Grazzinipastry shop (1966)
4. Interior of the Grazzini pastry shop in 19665. Chariots race6. Muzio Scaevola 7. Roman legionary8. I. Biancalana, Calafati e segantini (1960),bas-relief, Viareggio GAMC
Via della Quarquonia - Lucca - tel/fax 0583 496033Opening timesFrom Tuesday to Saturday: 8.30 am-7.30 pmSundays in June, July and August: 8.30 am-1.30 pm
For information contact the museums:Museo nazionale di Villa Guinigi: tel 0583 496033Museo nazionale di Palazzo Mansi: tel 0583 55570website: www.luccamuseinazionali.itemail: [email protected]
studioriccucci | san marco litotipo | lucca
CuratorsAntonia d’AnielloClaudio CasiniExhibition design project Glauco BorellaExhibition outfittingACME 04 S.r.l.Graphic design Marco RiccucciTexts for panels and brochuresClaudio CasiniTranslationsFabio BacciPhotographsDaniele Ciuffardi, Gabinetto fotograficoSoprintendenza BAPSAE di Lucca e Massa CarraraPhotographic references Archivio fotografico GAMC, ViareggioArchivio fotografico Biancalana, ViareggioArchivio fotografico Grazzini, ViareggioPress and Communication OfficeIlaria Giulia PergolaValeria MongelliThe works of art have been donated by Graziano Grazzini and Luana CasottiThanks toClara Biancalana and Giuseppe Biancalana, Daniele Luti, Alessandro Maffei and Carlo Paoletti
Several times the artistic production ofInaco Biancalana has been linked with thatof fellow countryman Lorenzo Viani, whichwas thirty years older. Even though thetwo never had a real teacher-pupil rela-tionship, Lorenzo Viani with his drawingsand paintings based on the issues of oftentragic everyday life, resolved with expres-sionist forms and caricatures, did influencedthe young Inaco. Not surprisingly, the wifeof Lorenzo, Giulia, took him under his pro-tection. In a letter, she describes him as aclever “self-taught in sculpture for the fiercepassion he has for art”. Viani and Biancalana,used in fact the same ‘grammar’ in art.Their style shared a similar figurative rootthat they used to describe the ordinarycharacters they met every day on the street,
often portrayed in irregular poses and withmocking glances. However Inaco has alwaysdenied this recourse to the style of Viani, ifanything its realism, as he used to said,came directly from the works of Giotto,Nicola and Giovanni Pisano and Michelan-gelo. The character of the Tuscan sculpturaltradition is well expressed in his large
graphic production and especially in thesculptures and wood reliefs, and in theseven panels presented here inspired bycharacters from ancient Rome, made be-tween 1965 and 1966 to decorate a newpastry shop in a district of Varignano inViareggio. The work was commissioned bythe shop owner Graziano Grazzini, a pas-sionate about Roman history. At first, Bian-calana refused to carry out the series becausethe subject requested didn’t appeal to him.His figurative repertoire was based mainlyon the characters related to the life on the
… a Self-taught in sculpture …(Giulia Viani)
sea. But he changed his mind when Grazzinireminded him of having helped, at the ageof ten, along with a friend, the father of hiswife Livia, who was lying on the road aftera hangover. The two children were receivedand thanked by a young Inaco in his studiowhere he was working on a statue. Hiswork and style attracted the attention ofGraziano. This memory was so clear in themind of Grazzini, that many years later, in1965 he thought about him for the deco-ration of his pastry store. As stated in thepress of the time, “the rebel, but also meek,Inaco was persuaded to return to the daysof Nero with a series of sculptures thathave been admired and praised”: so, nextto the Roman emperor, caught while singingand playing the lyre, from the artist’s chiselcame out a legionnaire, a senator, the leg-endary Muzio Scaevola, a matron, a gladi-ators fight and a chariots race.
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1. Roman Matron2. I. Biancalana, Motherhood, sculpture,Viareggio GAMC
3. I. Biancalana, Motherhood, charcoaldrawing
4a.Gladiators fight4b.Bas-relief with funerary banquet scene
(1st century AD)5a.Nero playing the lyre5b.Fragment of Roman stele
with inscription (1st century AD)6a. Sarcophagus fragment (3rd century AD)6b.Roman senator
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