Luigi Broggini

Luigi Broggini was born in Cittiglio in 1908 and died in Milan in 1983. He studied at the Accademia di Brera, where he attended classes taught by Adolfo Wildt and Vitaliano Marchini. In 1929, he spent time in Paris and in 1930 traveled to Belgium and Switzerland. In 1932, he moved to Rome, where he encountered the expressionism of the Roman School, saw the sculptures of past masters firsthand, and decided to dedicate himself to drawing. "I drew everything that my imagination had filtered, seeking the most natural transpositions for that wonderful scenery. Monuments, churches, architectures were the characters of these illustrations, but above all it was the sky of Rome that stirred in me the intoxicating desire for fabulous drawings. That sky, which I have always felt was red [...]," Broggini recalled, a sentiment reflected in some of the drawings from the Iannaccone collection.

Upon returning to Milan, he created one of the cornerstone works of his artistic production, the Ritratto di ragazzo (Portrait of a Boy) from 1932-35, a bronze head with protruding ears. This mischievous boy could be seen wandering through the outskirts of a late 19th-century metropolis, echoing the late Scapigliatura style of Lombardy integrated with the model of Medardo Rosso's children. In a 1941 article in Emporium, Attilio Podestà wrote: "1935 marks an important milestone with Bambino ammalato (Sick Child), of painful intensity, with Bassorilievo (Bas-Relief), of a raw and tormented violence, and with Ritratto di ragazzo exhibited in Genoa, works that in a sense conclude the early experiences, insistently aimed at liberating from his tormented sensitivity forms of an immediate and direct lyrical ignition."

Broggini continued his exploration by reflecting on the human figure, the dramas that Italy was experiencing, and the limited time we have available. In 1938, he created Figura al sole (Figure in the Sun) and Ballerina, which, clearly derived from Degas, loses its proverbial balance, striking a clumsy and precarious pose, with skin resembling a bark made of protrusions and indentations. This dynamic effect appealed to the sculptor for its play of matter and light, allowing him to examine the human body in its entirety, shaping through its physicality the fragility and precariousness of the inner self.