PIETRASANTA.- He was born in Pescara on February 2nd 1921, he lived in Fivizzano, in the Lunigiana region. His first steps into the art world were in painting, which was cultivated at his father Tommaso’s school. In 1938 he moved to Rome with his brother Andrea to attend the Fine Arts Academy. He soon had his first successes in painting: in 1943 he had an exhibition at the IV Art Quadrennial in Rome and in 1948 he exhibited at the XXIV Biennial in Venice.

He left painting for sculpture after the first postwar period, when together with Andrea and Anna Maria Cesarini, his future wife and Tommaso Jr. and Susanna’s mother, opened a little studio where he worked on sculpture and ceramics.

In the mid-Fifties he was commissioned to make the decoration of a ceiling (200 square metres) at Farnesina building, a work which enabled him to deepen the concept of space and to analyze the close relationships between sculpture and architecture, thus becoming a fundamental experience for his artistic career.

In 1957 he took part in the competition for the “Auschwitz monument” with a project realized by his brother Andrea together with the architect Julio Lafuente. After many events a project created by Pietro himself and the architect Giorgio Simoncini was approved. This work, which was realized in 1967, became one of his most important ones.

In 1971 he took part in the Salon de la Jeune Sculpture in Paris, he had an exhibition at Palais de Beaux Arts in Brussels and prepared his personal exhibition at Rotonda della Besana in Milan. In the same year he finished “Birth of the new man”, which was situated on a natural hill in Sasso Marconi, in Bologna province.

The next period was characterized by many monumental works in which social commitment and sculpture projects on urban scale were mixed: “Bella ciao”, monument in Resistance movement’s memory for Massa Carrara city (1979), “Monument to every day” was realized in 1980 for Pescina cathedral’s square and in 1982 he began a long and fruitful cooperation with Parma city thanks to the work “100 years’ work”, commissioned by Pietro Barilla for the anniversary of Barilla’s factory. Another interesting work is “The boat”, realized in 1987, made of Carrara marble and situated on Pescara promenade.

In 1984 he began to work on the project “Campo del sole” together with Mauro Berrettini and Cordelia von den Steinen, his widow and Jacopo’s mother. The group of statues, situated in Tuoro on Trasimeno Lake, is formed by 27 columns which were realized with the collaboration of many Italian and foreign artists.