Gino Bogoni

Dear Gino,

I am very pleased to have this opportunity to express in writing the feelings I have never been able to express before in words because sometimes friendship between men has its limits when it comes to expressing emotions; we often prefer to make light of things so as to hold on to our false "toughness".

As a doctor who is used to seeing suffering, pain and emotional involvement on the faces of my patients, I want to say that I feel un unconditional admiration and respect for you: I have seen how you have coped with your disease and have thus shared with you both suffering and joy.

If the personality of a man can be judged by how he faces the painful events of his life, then I can say that you truly deserve to be called a Man.

If the strength and enthusiasm of a pure heart can be seen in the great courage shown throughout your illness, then you will never be in need of a "cardiologist".

If gratitude can be read in the deep, intense expression in your eyes, then I know I possess the most precious of gifts: your friendship, the friendship of a true man.

Yet I have to say that your humanity is partly reflected by the light that shines from the woman who has been so lucky as to share married life with you. She stimulates and encourages you, knows when to remain silent, how to share your suffering and joy; she is a woman in every sense of the word.

As a doctor I will have to face many more battles in my career. Sometimes they will have a happy ending as in your case, sometimes tragic, such as our fragile human nature dictates.

But if being a doctor means being able to share in other people's life events, then I have to thank my profession for having given me the opportunity to know a true man at such close quarters.

Thanks Gino, thank-you so much for your friendship.


Franco Chierego

"For me, artistic endeavour is of inestimable value. I couldn't live in any other way than that assigned to me by fate. Sculpting, for me, is like breathing". These words were said by Gino Bogoni (Verona 1921 - 1990), whose works returns to Rome in a first retrospective exhibition, after their first appearance 40 years ago and some 16 years after his death. The show, headed by Francesco Butturini (his biographer, and researcher as well as author of two studies: Gino Bogoni, published in 2001 and Gino Bogoni, Painting on the Wings of Butterflies, published in 2003 by Edizioni d'Arte Ghelfi of Verona) and the artist's daughter-in-law Patrizia Arduini Bogoni, and displayed by courtesy of the Banco Popolare di Verona at Palazzo Altieri in Piazza del Gesu' in Rome, presents a panoramic view of his works as both sculptor and graphic artist, with works ranging from his earliest period (Vecchia Sofia [Old Sofia] , 1947; Gallina [Hen], 1952; Giancarlo, (1952) to the celebrated Donne [Women] of the 70's and to the sculptures that brought him international recognition such as Lotus, Heliantus [Helianthus], Mutazioni [Mutations], Metamorfosi [Metamorphosis], and Quadrato vitale [Vital Square].
As a student of the sculptor Franco Egidio Girelli at the Accademia Veronese G.B. Cignaroli, he began his career studying and reproducing the bronze panels on the doors of the Basilica of San Zeno in Verona and archaic images of Lessinia. His direct knowledge of the works of Arturo Martini, Luciano Minguzzi, Giacomo Manzu' and above all of Marcello Mascherini, with whom he worked for long periods on prestigious projects, led him progressively to work more and more independently, bringing him international exposure at the Rome Quadriennale in 1965 and at the Venice Biennale in 1966. Further impetus towards artistic renewal in sculpting came from his trip to the United States in 1968 and via the increasingly unfettered and invigorating contact he had with the latest Italian and European movements, represented in Italy in the plastic and spatial explorations of Consagra and Arnaldo Pomodoro, with whose works Bogoni's productions of the 60-70's show a distinct affinity. As Giorgio Cortenova wrote, "This artist represents Veronese sculpture more than anyone else, at the same time both transcending and bringing his inexhaustible Veronese roots to bear on the great international developments in contemporary sculpture".
These plastic explorations, born of Bogoni's profoundly felt existentialism, find rich and copious expression in the bronzes cast during the final period of his life, such as the numerous pieces that comprise the Donne, and in Lotus, Mutazioni and Heliantus. On display near this fundamentally important section of his works are 25 of his pictures: explosions of colour and the most delicate tracings of leaves, stones, and twigs, like the delicate interweaving of a spider's web, such as would have been much to the liking of Bissier.
Within the historical sequence of his works, so well-represented in the Rome exhibition, a number of his bronzes deserve special mention, having won a series of prestigious awards: ranging from Bovino [Bovine](1961) which won the prize at the Verona Biennale to Le Grandi Ruote [The Great Wheels] and Forme di Vita [Forms of Life] (1965), which sprung from Bogoni's observation of objects and shapes in every day life - as he himself reveals in his "Artist's Diary" - and with which he participated in the IX Quadriennale in Rome. And let us not forget the series of Vacchette [Cows] (1959-1960), and Lotus (1972-1973), which won him the first prize at the 9th Concorso Internazionale del Bronzetto [International Bronze Competition] in Padua in 1973, a sort of primordial plastic inflorescence whose bronze spikes, upon being struck, emit intense and sonorous vibrations. Fluenze [Flowings] followed in 1967, winning the Unesco French Critics' Cup at the International Exhibition of Contemporary Art in Paris.
Referring to the over one hundred Donne created by the Veronese artist, Butturini writes: "Bogoni's Women are creations of the unconscious, a revelation of the unconscious in sequential form yet also the result of a perfect mastery of raw material which derives not from a precise act of artistic will but from the 'anxiety' of waiting to see what comes forth..." Whether it be in bronze or on paper, a journey amongst the works of Gino Bogoni is like walking through woods that reach out to the sea. Because this is matter that breathes, it moves as if blown by the wind in a dream-like enchantment. And quoting Butturini again "In every Bogoni cast, in his "lunar eruptions" or in his fluid forms that seem to take shape in the light and in space with the subtly erotic lightness of touch of a propulsive femininity, you sense the appearance or rather the emergence of a universal "pulsation" which overcomes every barrier in its urge to come into being, to exist.
Bogoni's life is revealed in his "Artist's Diary", published to coincide with the exhibition. The last of six brothers, Bogoni was born in Verona on 7th July, 1921. His was an unhappy childhood due to the untimely death of his mother, as was his adolescence, but he was precociously open to art, so that when, in 1934, he met Girelli, then Director of the Accademia Cignaroli, he became at the age of just 13, his student and assistant. He worked on increasingly important projects, passing his Diploma in Sculpture in 1939. He continued at the Accademia until 1941 when he was called to arms and sent to Russia, where he survived a series of incredible adventures until the spring of 1943 when he made his way back to Italy alone and on foot. On 22nd April he married Lina whom he had met briefly before leaving for the Russian campaign. They were to have two sons, Giancarlo and Franco.
From 1947 and for the next seven years, Bogoni taught ornamental design and sculpture at the Scuola d'Arte Applicata all'Industria based in San Michele Extra, Verona. In 1971 he taught sculpture at the Sommerakademie Fur Bildende Kunst in Salzburg (Austria). He also held courses in sculpture in Belgium at the Academies of Liege, Brussels, Antwerp, Verviers and Hasselt. Despite the fact that he suffered for some 25 years from a terrible illness, he continued working, overcoming pain by a sheer act of willpower and harnessing renewed energy from it in order to go on, saying: "There can be no rest for an artist, ever, right up to the end". And so it was to be, because in 1990, the year in which he died, shortly before going into hospital for the umpteenth and unfortunately, last time, Bogoni doggedly completed his large work Frutto Oggetto Scultura [ Fruit Object Sculpture] which as a result of a donation made by the artist's heirs, stands permanently on display in the historic centre of Verona in Piazzetta S.Nicolo'. Aware of the serious risk involved in the operation he was about to undergo, the sculptor admits in his writings: "This could well be my last work; I cannot risk it remaining at the stage of an idea or even of a sketch. I absolutely must bring it to completion first, at whatever cost. And here it is at last, completed".

Michele De Luca, 2006

Gino Bogoni first began his "Artist's Diary" in the second half of the 1970s when the sculptor, who was already well-known both in Italy and outside, was struggling between one illness and another and one exhibition and another and was intensively engaged in creative explorations, to which we are indebted for some of his greatest works of art. The diary remained in the hands of his sons, along with his works. Thereafter it passed into the hands of his biographer and principal art critic, Francesco Butturini, who initially quoted some extracts from it and gleaned insights for the interpretation of the artist's works, in his first book published in 2001. It now appears in a complete form in an elegant volume - edited again by Francesco Butturini and published by Gemma Editco - and was presented before an emotional and participative audience at the Literary Society of Verona. The speakers included Francesco Butturini, the journalist Antonio Felice and the Councillor for Education of Pescantina District Council, a town which was particularly dear to Bogoni, as it is to the rest of his family.
During the occasion, Butturini announced that after the recent retrospective exhibition in Rome (a great success!) another exhibition is being prepared in Trieste, where Bogoni's works will be displayed alongside the works of Mascherini, one of the great sculptors with whom he worked. Butturini wanted, rightly enough, to preserve the fragmentary format which, more than an orderly chronological sequence (which is, in any case, discernible!) provides the feeling of the occasional nature of the reflections and experiences that gave rise to the writings, in diverse and distant moments, probably due to Bogoni's irresistible impulse to record his thoughts, feelings and memories.
Antonio Felice highlighted the fact that the book gives a simple, direct, honest and therefore extremely meaningful account of the life and works of the artist and touched on the most important narrative milestones. Thus the Diary is also the story of the making of an artist and a delightful story of adventure and redemption: Bogoni was born into a poor family and lost his mother at an early age. As in a typical fairy tale, he was raised by a nasty stepmother. He grew up loveless and deprived, living a life burdened by heavy and mind-numbing labour, feeling rejected as if he were an intruder in his own home. In fact, little more than a child, he was sent to work for a stonemason who made gravestones for the tombs in a cemetery.
But at was at this point that his life took a turn as it did for other extraordinary artists such as Giotto. While working hard as a sculptor, he was spotted by Franco Girelli, the then Director of the Accademia Cignaroli, who was immediately impressed by his innate skill and enrolled him at the Accademia, making him his personal assistant. But just as life is not a fairy tale, the relationship between the two was not entirely a happy one and Bogoni, justifiably, felt exploited and underrated.
The Diary contains some very moving stories, and accounts about how unexpected solutions were found to apparently insurmountable problems: how he attached a glass statue by Mascherini to the ceiling of a transatlantic liner so that, while acting as a chandelier, it would also stand up against the movement of the waves, and how he managed to get the wax mould of a sculpture through a doorway that was too narrow, etc. But Bogoni was an artist as well as an ingenious craftsman and his life's work bears witness to the effort he made to break out of the mould of a role that he felt too narrow to accommodate his aspirations.
Butturini commented on Bogoni's life and the difficult relationship between Verona and its creative artists. Verona is a cruel stepmother towards its own artists, says Butturini. It is a well-known fact that a prophet is never welcomed in his own home town, but the feeling of regret remains, even if Bogoni did in fact gain recognition later in life as being ahead of his time. His works can only be appraised and appreciated alongside the works of other great European and American artists, which at that time still remained unknown to his little town in Veneto in the north-east of Italy.
Butturini also rightly recalls Bogoni's heroic attitude towards his illness which he faced right up to the end with an incredible resistance towards pain. But also the disinterested and splendid relationship he had with his vocation, even when struggling with the poverty of means that was a constant in his life. The gratuitous nature of his dedication to art was perhaps one of the most salient features of his whole life's work. As he revealingly says in his Dairy: "I consider the artist to be a little hero, because he is prepared to give everything in exchange for nothing, even in exchange for not being understood".

Michele De Luca, 2006

Gino Bogoni is one of the most complete all-round artists on the contemporary artistic scene. His works are on display in the most important national and international exhibitions.
His works, exhibited in public and private collections both in Italy or abroad, need time to reveal their meaning and should be looked at and meditated upon at length. And the longer they are looked at, the more powerful are the emotions they evoke.
This artist, who was born into a very poor family, was a self-made man in the true sense of the word, because his hands were his fortune. Looking at his hands as he worked with and in the material that he fashioned, one could not but feel that this amazing, productive, combative and original sculptor was born an artist.
He started as a young boy carving stones with poor, rudimentary tools and then, after studying at the "Accademia Cignaroli", and after the tragic events on the Russian front, the quarantine camp and a long period of ill health and psychological-creative problems, he strode resolutely onwards, gaining great artistic acclaim first at a regional level and then both nationally and, finally, internationally.

The following excerpts, taken from some of his interviews, illustrate Bogoni's development both as a man and an artist:

Could you tell us something about yourself?
"I started with the subject of the 'Cow' (1956-1961). I was attracted by their weight, their static nature and I expressed my creativity with almost primordial works. I wanted to follow my instinct in respecting the material I was working with, by using just a few spontaneous gestures. I was awarded the national prize for these works in Verona in 1961.
Then I went through a troubled period of exhausting creative research (1962-1965). During his period I accepted all the commissions I received without thinking if they were worth doing or not. Later on I felt in touch with all my inner exuberant energy, but I was also aware that my ideas were very clear to me. At this point my new form of sculpture was born (1965-1967). I created 'Shadows', the 'The Great Wheels', 'Vital Shapes', 'Planimetries' and 'Sculpture Object'. In 1968 I started studying graphic art, as I had never really focused on drawing before. In 1969 I came back to the 'Cows'. In 1971 I created the 'Cosmic Seed', renewing my previous interest in the nucleus. In 1972-1973 I sculpted the "Lotus" and thanks to this work I was awarded prizes of worldwide importance. Then I created the 'River Crossing' (1973-1974) where I attempted to eliminate a part of the image, and concentrated on form and composition.
From 1976 to 1985 I focused my attention on 'woman'; I made use of clay again and I exploited the immediate plastic potential that comes from using thumb pressure. In 1982-1983 I created 'Helianthus' (the irrational, disorder), a natural continuation of the 'Lotus' (the rational). From 1982 to 1985 I devoted to 'Cosmos' which gave me the opportunity to broaden my knowledge of cavities and convexities".

And how did 'The Great Wheels' originate ?
"From the effect created by a stone thrown into the water: a central hole and circles spreading out over water. The circle represents life. The sculptures of the Venice Biennale originated from this idea."

What did you wish to achieve with 'Lotus'?
"I wanted to come out of the centre of the nucleus through radial shapes similar to the spikes of a sea-urchin. The nucleus has a vacuum at its centre, which both generates and devours. The 'Lotus' sculptures can be seen as plant life or animals and they can arouse particular feelings, even of a sexual nature".

And how did you work with 'Women'?
"I had an urge to return to 'easily malleable' material that could be easily shaped by the thumb. I had already abandoned the feminine figure but when I saw women in the street, I absorbed their image.
My 'women' are walking or standing forms. They are like pillars or plants. Nearly all of this is invention. She is no longer a provocative woman but woman pure and clean. These creatures of mine came from a single desire: to go back to moulding the material I had left some twenty years earlier: clay. The women took shape in my hands like a flame leaping to life. I have always followed my instinct, allowing the material to lead me. These creatures were conceived with immense joy, like a child conceived by an act of love. In 'Mutations' did you also intend to represent the struggle between Good and Evil?
"Probably. I put my hands into the material and just let myself go.
An artist forgets his problems while he is creating. He has a great inner strength that can be useful to him even at a therapeutic level".

How important is artistic activity in your life?
"Inconceivable without it! I couldn't live in any other way than that assigned to me by fate. Sculpting for me is like breathing, believing in the marvellous, extraordinary faculties that belong to man and taking part in the evolution of culture, of progress, of intelligence... It means everything to me!"

You have witnessed tragic events, you were very close to death during the war and in hospital. Don't you think you need some peace and relaxation after sacrificing so much energy?
"No! It was not a sacrifice, even if it involved great suffering, torment and stress. If I could I would begin all over again, with the same conviction and determination I had when I still was a young artist. There can never be rest for an artist, never, right up to the end".


...And so it would be. In 1990, the year of his death, shortly before entering the clinic for the umpteenth and unfortunately last operation, Gino Bogoni completed his great work, 'Fruit Object Sculpture'. The work of art, exhibited in a square in the historic centre of Verona was donated by Bogoni's heirs to the town in accordance with the artist's wishes; now it is permanently on display, thus sealing the bond linking Bogoni with his town and his fellow citizens.
But Bogoni is also and above all a citizen of the world because in his works, citing a splendid phrase by the well-known art critic Francesco Butturini, 'you can sense a universal pulsation that overcomes all barriers in its attempt to become, to come-into-being'.

Gino Bogoni was able to attract the attention of the art world and to become one of its indisputable protagonists, having brought his Veronese roots to bear on international developments in contemporary sculpture.

Jean-Pierre Jouvet

With regard to the sculptures by Gino Bogoni, I would like, above all, to underline their singular, rare finish.
At a time when everything seems to be temporary, when transience and uncertainty seem to dominate, and when anyone can claim that a mouldy piece of wood or a rusty cast-off are sculptures, Bogoni with his characteristic stubbornness continues to creates meaningful works where every aspect has its 'raison d'etre'.
He is not what he is by chance. And it is not a coincidence that he is Veronese and it was in Verona that the panels of the doors of the basilica of San Zeno were fashioned, for his origins and his apprenticeship have certainly influenced his art. But while he is not a man whose inspiration comes from the past, he does indeed take stock of it and is entitled to be mentioned within the context of modern European sculpture, and its most noble exponents.
He seems to be most attracted by a certain kind of neo-cubist sculpture. But he rejects the sharp, harsh forms of neo-cubist art, and infuses his forms with finesse, softness, much in keeping with his Venetian origins.
It is clear, without recourse to grand theories, that he relies on the ancient concept of a three-dimensional sculpture based on strict and logical drawing as a departure point. No frills or fanciful whims. That is why he is also a gifted, quality goldsmith and an equally skilful medallist.
In the series of works he presents here - as with the works whose inspiration was sought in lunar rocks or in the mysterious, remote webs of bubbles and eruptions that were the details of a stellar topography - Bogoni indirectly evokes, with a kind of Virgilian spirit, the work carried out by men in the fields with their animals. His works are like time-honoured seasons, sustained by bucolic reminiscences and the lyrical verses of a poet for the land that bore him.
It is this sustaining and animating modern spirit in Bogoni that, thankfully, keeps him anchored to the age-old rhythms and reasons that give life meaning.

Garibaldo Marussi, 1971

We know that some of the freer art forms of our time passed, at a certain point during their evolution, from their finished form back to their premise. This was due to a certain conviction: that one can more easily come to an understanding of reality via an investigation into its structure rather than into its manifestations. Clearly, in overcoming the concrete in order to access the formless, it was assumed that the journey had reached is natural conclusion. Like few others, however, Bogoni wanted to venture further still. On his journey towards the 'inner' he wanted to add another dimension, the 'outer'. We know the cavities and convexities of the sphere that represents Bogoni's world. However, this new direction is not to be regarded as backtracking; otherwise he would be simply retracing old steps. Instead it confirms, indirectly, that the path towards the 'formless' was taken for very precise reasons. Realty was represented at the beginning by Bogoni in one of its simplest forms: the patient strength of an animal. And the technique was a new discovery. The modelling of the subject was substituted by a shaping executed via a few, confident gestures. The immediacy of the creative process gave the material an air of spontaneity.
Bogoni's aim was to get in touch with what he felt inside by eliminating the intermediate stages. He was convinced that in so doing, nothing would be lost of the vitality that makes things quintessentially 'present' to us. Of course he needed to find a personal technique that would allow him a mastery of the material as well as affording him the maximum degree of freedom.
The choice of subject - 'Cow' - was not accidental. Bogoni was taking as a subject an essential aspect of the world. This minimalism was better able to capture the essence of what is 'lasting' than other subjects. But quite apart from the immediate impact on the observer, it could also express the vitality that characterises existence.
It was this overwhelming sense of dynamism that led him to go beyond the figurative and track down the underlying source. And so it was that his greatest works were created, in which the primordial ontic moment, the as-yet-unidentifiable form is grasped, the matrix of all forms. Thus a form captured in time acquired its original power. Bogoni went back to the deep nucleic centre of convulsive matter-in-the-making. He shaped the absolute in nature, the coming-into-being, followed now by its condensation in a specific concrete form. Of that early work, which resulted from a simple act of intuition, what remains is the technique, perfected by skilful excavation. The subsequent work, the most important and still the most pre-eminent, reveals both the technique and its expressive force.
One can not, therefore, speak of Bogoni's adoption of an extrinsic scheme, but rather of an expression of morphic primary energies via a coherent language. The return to past themes is generally regarded as a temporary digression or a sign of a loss of faith. In this case, the representation of an image intends to communicate the reality of the essential matter of which the subject is composed.
The passage from the absolutely formless and indeterminate to the harmony of actual coming-into-being has been achieved with such naturalness as to indicate the necessity of this detour, and confirms Bogoni's unfailing interpretative skills.

Silvano Martini, 1970

Gino Bogoni first began his "Artist's Diary" in the second half of the 1970s when the sculptor, who was already well-known both in Italy and outside, was struggling between one illness and another and one exhibition and another and was intensively engaged in creative explorations, to which we are indebted for some of his greatest works of art. The diary remained in the hands of his sons, along with his works. Thereafter it passed into the hands of his biographer and principal art critic, Francesco Butturini, who initially quoted some extracts from it and gleaned insights for the interpretation of the artist's works, in his first book published in 2001. It now appears in a complete form in an elegant volume - edited again by Francesco Butturini and published by Gemma Editco - and was presented before an emotional and participative audience at the Literary Society of Verona. The speakers included Francesco Butturini, the journalist Antonio Felice and the Councillor for Education of Pescantina District Council, a town which was particularly dear to Bogoni, as it is to the rest of his family.
During the occasion, Butturini announced that after the recent retrospective exhibition in Rome (a great success!) another exhibition is being prepared in Trieste, where Bogoni's works will be displayed alongside the works of Mascherini, one of the great sculptors with whom he worked. Butturini wanted, rightly enough, to preserve the fragmentary format which, more than an orderly chronological sequence (which is, in any case, discernible!) provides the feeling of the occasional nature of the reflections and experiences that gave rise to the writings, in diverse and distant moments, probably due to Bogoni's irresistible impulse to record his thoughts, feelings and memories.
Antonio Felice highlighted the fact that the book gives a simple, direct, honest and therefore extremely meaningful account of the life and works of the artist and touched on the most important narrative milestones. Thus the Diary is also the story of the making of an artist and a delightful story of adventure and redemption: Bogoni was born into a poor family and lost his mother at an early age. As in a typical fairy tale, he was raised by a nasty stepmother. He grew up loveless and deprived, living a life burdened by heavy and mind-numbing labour, feeling rejected as if he were an intruder in his own home. In fact, little more than a child, he was sent to work for a stonemason who made gravestones for the tombs in a cemetery.
But at was at this point that his life took a turn as it did for other extraordinary artists such as Giotto. While working hard as a sculptor, he was spotted by Franco Girelli, the then Director of the Accademia Cignaroli, who was immediately impressed by his innate skill and enrolled him at the Accademia, making him his personal assistant. But just as life is not a fairy tale, the relationship between the two was not entirely a happy one and Bogoni, justifiably, felt exploited and underrated.
The Diary contains some very moving stories, and accounts about how unexpected solutions were found to apparently insurmountable problems: how he attached a glass statue by Mascherini to the ceiling of a transatlantic liner so that, while acting as a chandelier, it would also stand up against the movement of the waves, and how he managed to get the wax mould of a sculpture through a doorway that was too narrow, etc. But Bogoni was an artist as well as an ingenious craftsman and his life's work bears witness to the effort he made to break out of the mould of a role that he felt too narrow to accommodate his aspirations.
Butturini commented on Bogoni's life and the difficult relationship between Verona and its creative artists. Verona is a cruel stepmother towards its own artists, says Butturini. It is a well-known fact that a prophet is never welcomed in his own home town, but the feeling of regret remains, even if Bogoni did in fact gain recognition later in life as being ahead of his time. His works can only be appraised and appreciated alongside the works of other great European and American artists, which at that time still remained unknown to his little town in Veneto in the north-east of Italy.
Butturini also rightly recalls Bogoni's heroic attitude towards his illness which he faced right up to the end with an incredible resistance towards pain. But also the disinterested and splendid relationship he had with his vocation, even when struggling with the poverty of means that was a constant in his life. The gratuitous nature of his dedication to art was perhaps one of the most salient features of his whole life's work. As he revealingly says in his Dairy: "I consider the artist to be a little hero, because he is prepared to give everything in exchange for nothing, even in exchange for not being understood".

Paola Azzolini, 2007