Project Description
Tancredi Pozzi (Milan 1864 – Turin 1924), Patagonian lookout
Bronze cm 51 x 20 x 13 signed and dated (1882) on the base.
INFO: if you need more information
Publications
– Opera artistica di Tancredi Pozzi, Istituto Italiano d’arti grafiche, Bergamo 1917, tab. II
Trained at the Albertina Academy, where he had as a teacher Giuseppe Dini, who deeply influenced the definition of his stylistic language, Tancredi Pozzi worked mainly in Turin. In the capital of Savoy, he performed bas-reliefs, funerary monuments and commemorative monuments, many of which were dedicated to enhancing the Risorgimento values and national unity. He preferred statues of vigorous and lively horses and horsemen, such as Ettore Fieramosca, Arduino of Ivrea, Clelia, Autari, Fetonte sul Po, characters taken from the epic and mythology and from poems and romances that were re-interpreted in a heroic key – but of a rather melodramatic theatrical heroism – and that had so much success among the art collectors.
The most famous monument performed by Tancredi Pozzi is certainly the Umberto I of Savoy, placed in 1902 in front of the Basilica of Superga: a bronze – of very high workmanship – that presents an ancient Celtic warrior, in honor of the dynasty, next to a column on which a crowned and pierced eagle is placed. A similar search for a certain exoticism, recognizable in the figure of the rough Allobrogo, characterizes the bronze presented here, a Patagonian lookout who embodies all the taste of the sculptor for unconventional themes and subjects.
Another important bronze monument to remember in the production of the Pozzi is, then, the Garibaldi placed on a rock, inaugurated in 1904 in Porto Maurizio.
Alongside this celebratory production, studded with monumental sculptural groups, Pozzi created a series of works distinguished by a sketches and anecdotal vein, free from any desire for denunciation or particular commitment: this is the case, for example, of “Sarà temporale”, a small sculpture presented in 1884 at the Turin Egyptian Museum, and of “Regata vinta”, presented at the National Exhibition of Venice in 1887. To this realism, which is inspired by moments of common life or in any case a daily life that does not overshadow details of ideal depths or anxieties, can be linked the “Tafani molesti” plaster group, exhibited in 1888 in Bologna, which represents a troubled horse tormented by insect bites, and an equestrian bronze with a captivating title, for the homonymy between the sculptor and the hero created by Tasso, “Tancredi in love”.
