Ugo CIPRIANI (1897-1960):
Ugo Cipriani is an Italian sculptor who was born in Florence the 13th of August 1897. Son of a sculptor, he studied at the famous Academy of Fine Arts of Florence. In Florence, we can still see one of his most famous works, a bust of the patriot Guglielmo Oberdan (1919), in the place named after him (Piazza Oberdan).
Around 1935, he left Italy for France to escape from Mussolini's fascist government. He lived in Paris as a political refugee where he kept on working his craft until his death. He produced many fine art deco style statuary items in various media, including bronze, spelter and terracotta, often neo-classic subjects, in the taste of the Antiquity men heads and busts, athletes and hunters, naked women, mother and child, kids and animals, in the style of Demetre Chiparus or Joe de Roncourt.
As many Italian sculptors are named 'Cipriani' and signed without their first name, he is often confused with Adolfo Cipriani (active 1880-1925), author of many alabaster busts of young ladies in the 1900 style, or with the painter and sculptor Giovanni Pinotti Cipriani (XXth c.) who exhibited in Paris since 1903.
He died in Paris in June 1960.