Ugo Guidi - From Academy to success

In 1940 Ugo Guidi, when he was twenty-eight years old, married Giuliana Iacometti who gave him two sons: Vittorio in 1944 and Fabrizio in 1952. The marriage and the birth of his sons where two very important events not only for sculptor's life but even for his art: the woman became another time the protagonist for her support and for her motherhood. Giuliana, the most important woman for Ugo Guidi, had a very different temper from that of Ugo Guidi. He was reserved, mild and introverted, while she was lively and exuberant: nevertheless she was very intelligent and always tried to support and encourage the work of his husband, so she managed the family menage to leave the sculptor free. Meanwhile, Guidi started to participate to national sculpture prizes: in 1943 he was in Verona and in 1948 he participated to the International Grand Prix of Forte dei Marmi.
In 1948 after being assistant of Dazzi in the Academy, he took part to a contest to obtain his own professorship: he won it but he would have gone to Palermo to teach, so he preferred to stay in Carrara again as assistant and he taught till 1976, one year before his death. The Academy of Fine Arts of Carrara was very important for Guidi: he learned to represent reality here and in the Academy he could teach his knowledge to a lot of students longing for a complete education.
Meanwhile he continued is activity and in 1956, after having become fried of Ottone Rosai, the famous Florentine painter, and Piero Santi, who was a close friend of Rosai, he managed to exhibit his works for the first time in a personal exhibition. The exhibition took place in the "La Strozzina" gallery in Florence and was presented by Piero Santi who extolled Guidi's production: the sculptor exhibited in the Florentine exhibition all his works, included those realized during his youth. The exhibition was the first of a successful series and the critics all around Italy started to know his art. In 1956 he had another personal exhibition in Rome while in 1960 he was in Florence, with his first exhibition in the "L'Indiano" gallery, presented by Umberto Baldini, one of the critics who better appreciated his art. The 1960 exhibition was very important because since that year the "L'Indiano" gallery become his main gallery, the place where he decided to always exhibit his works in preview. From 1960 to 1977 Guidi always passed from Florence to exhibit his production so in 1965 he decided, together with his friend painter Arturo Puliti, to rent an office in via Varlugo in Florence, but he came back to Versilia one year later: the 1966 flood destroyed every work conserved in the Florentine office.
It was an "obliged" return, because nowhere he find a place which was better than his house in Vittoria Apuana, very close to the sea. It was a quiet house, where, between pine trees and marble blocks and near to the Tyrrhenian Sea, his realizations took life. His house become also the meeting point of great persons of the 20th century Italian art and literature: persons such as Ardengo Soffici, Achille Funi, Alfonso Gatto, Giuseppe Migneco, Mino Maccari, Ernesto Treccani, Magda De Grada, Carlo Carrà, Raffaele Carrieri, Antonio Bueno and others became friend of him and passed a lot of time in his house.

A project by
Federico Giannini

Museo Ugo Guidi
(Forte dei Marmi)

Associazione Amici
del Museo Ugo Guidi
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University of Pisa