The Museum Venturino Venturi is situated on the ground floor of Palazzo Comunale in the village of Loro Ciuffenna, Tuscany. There are 92 works (sculptures and drawings) exhibited which cover a period of more than 40 years of activity. Donated by Venturino to his hometown, they completely represent his artistic career and describe the vitality of his relationship with Italian culture. With the unique interpretation of Pinocchio’s image, very present in the paintings inside the museum, Venturino offers one of the most representative icons on contemporary culture. The theme of his mother’s influence is confirmed in all the exhibition area of the museum and this is the central point of the artist’s reflection. The Museum and the Archive Venturino Venturi, situated in Casa Venturi, represent the central point of getting to know one of the main personalities of the second half of twentieth century. Casa Venturi hosts inside it the sculptor’s Atelier, the spaces where he lived in his late years, and it is also an active centre of artistic education as well as for the production of exhibitions on an international level.
Biography
Venturino Venturi was born in Loro Ciuffena in 1918. In 1921 he went with his father, antifascist and emigrant, in France and then Luxemburg; in 1934 he came back to Italy to finish his studies at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Florence. Here he fully experienced the cultural mood of the time and he became friends with the painter Ottone Rosai, the poet Eugenio Montale and younger authors Mario Luzi and Vasco Pratolini. The years of his Florentine education ended with World War II and his serious injury on the Greek-Albanian front. His first artistic exposition took place in Florence with an enthusiastic outcome. He worked two years in Milan, where he met Lucio Fontana, then in Luxemburg and again in Tuscany. He participated to the main Italian art festivals like Venice Biennial in 1950. In 1954 he won the international contest for the Monument to Pinocchio by Collodi, with an artistic and physical effort that made him stay inactive until 1960; the same year the gallery La Strozzina in Florence organised his first anthological exhibition followed by many other awards, public positions and an intense activity in Italy, France and Luxemburg. In 1993 the Municipality of Loro Ciuffenna, which Venturino chose as his home, inaugurated a museum completely dedicated to his works that became a permanent element of the collections in great museums. Short after his passing (2002) Casa Venturi was inaugurated and opened to the public, as well as his home-atelier which is now seat for the Archive Venturino Venturi and the Research centre for Italian Sculpture of the 1900s.
Opening hours:
June 16 – September 15, 10.30-12.30 / 16.00-19.00 (closed on Tuesday)
September 16 – April 24 and days before holidays: 16.00-19.00
April 25 – June 15 holidays and pre holidays: 10.30-12.30 / 16.00-19.00
turismo.cultura@comune.loro-ciuffenna.ar.it