Arturo Martini
Arturo Martini was born in Treviso in 1889 into a poor family. When he was still a boy he began to attend an art night school, exhibiting his first terracotta sculptures in the shop windows of the town. In 1907 he frequented the studio of the sculptor Antonio Carlini in Treviso, and the following year began to study in Venice with Urbano Nono. His youthful masterpieces of sculpture and ceramography were exhibited as part of the Ist Exhibition of Ca’ Pesaro.
Called up to the army in 1916, he managed to avoid being sent to the front, and moved to Vado Ligure, where he met his future wife Brigida Pessaro. During a stay in Faenza he modelled pottery and published Contemplazioni, a book without words or pictures, with only black nicks on a white background.
In 1920 he married Brigida Pessaro and was the only sculptor to join the “Valori Plastici” group, with which he took part in a travelling exhibition in Germany and later on, with a personal exhibition, in the “Primaverile Fiorentina”. In 1923 he took on his first public commission, sculpting the War Memorial of Vado Ligure.
From 1921 to 1928 he lived and worked between Vado Ligure, Rome and Anticoli Corrado, where he was active in graphics and painting, techniques which gave him access to a wider market. In 1929 Guido Balsamo Stella invited him to teach at the State Institute for Artistic Industries of Monza, and in the same year he met Egle Rosmini, with whom he was to live continuously until 1946, while still maintaining his relationship with his family.
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