Mirko Basaldella

Viandante

Mirko Basaldella was born in Udine, Italy, in September of 1910 and died in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in November of 1969. He studied at the Art School of Venice, at the Academy of Florence, and at the School of Art in Monza. He worked at the studio of Arturo Martini and as a student until 1933, when he moved to Rome. Basaldella's first exhibition was in 1935 at the Galleria La Cometa. His trip to Paris in 1937 with his brother, Afro, was a huge influence on his art and opened up a whole new view of Mediterranean culture. In 1935 he settled in Rome and joined the Milanese group of Corrente. 

In New York, at the Knoedler gallery in 1947, Basaldella held an exhibition that he would repeat in the following two years. In 1949 and in 1951, he constructed three bronze gates for the Fosse Ardeatine. In 1957, he was called to direct the design workshop at the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Afterward, his sculptures shifted toward a technological and mechanical direction. In the 1960s, Basaldella dedicated himself to a new series of painted woods and bronze. Lastly, he worked on figurative themes inspired by Biblical stories.