Baboons (1923)

Inscription on the base: “Firenze – Tofanari Sirio – 12/1923”

Stamp on the base: “diritti d’autore”; under the base: 1924 Venice Biennale label with the name of the author and the name of the work

Provenance: Rome, private collection

Exhibition: Venice, XIV International Art Exhibition, 1924, No. 28

Bibliography: Catalogo XIV – Esposizione Internazionale d’arte della Città di Venezia, p. 26, n. 28; Sirio Tofanari. Sculptures d’animaux, Florence, Imprimiere e Ariani, 1928, p. 12; image out of text

One of the greatest interpreters of Italian animalier sculpture in the early 20th century, Sirio Tofanari was born in Florence in 1886. An artist with an independent nature, he attended the Academy of Fine Arts for only one year: he preferred to escape from the canonical training courses, so he left for Paris in 1906 and shortly after went to London, where he revealed his vocation for animal sculpture very soon. He spent entire days in the city’s zoo in Regent’s Park, observing the most diverse species of animals whose anatomy he then studied at the Natural History Museum in South Kensington. Returning to Italy, in 1908 he made his debut at the Faenza exhibition and the following year participated at his first Venice Biennale, immediately receiving the favour of Ugo Ojetti who, in the catalogue, described the young artist as “passionate and dramatic”[1] referring to the sculpture Carezza. This work depicts a pair of felines “united in a group of masterly harmony and expression”[2], and exhibits a synthetic and elegant modelling, made up of sinuous lines and soft volumes that blend together.

But it was in the post-war period that Tofanari achieved his greatest success: after participating in the Fiorentina Primaverile in 1922, a solo exhibition was dedicated to him at the III Roman Biennale in 1925. His marked naturalism, both classical and synthetic at the same time, based on agile and rhythmic lines, emerges with precise clarity from the animals of the 1920s, including Baboons, a work from 1923, exhibited at the Venice Biennale in 1924. Endowed with “accurate meticulousness of calligraphically sculpted details and skilfully modelled surfaces”[3], it highlights the chiseller’s strong aptitude, reminiscent of “some extremely detailed Japanese bronzes of realistic animal stylisation”[4].The gracefulness of the masses and the solidity of the lines, given to the meticulous finishing of the chisel, make the Baboons vibrant in their expressive energy and majestic in their advance.

Like other animalier sculptors, he read Rudyard Kipling, who gave him the inspiration for some evocative representations, including that of the wrinkled epidermis of the Elephantesses intertwining their snouts and trunks, where the light is distributed to support the carefully investigated surface. Tofanari’s knowledge of the subject matter and the versatility of his style were particularly appreciated in the foreign market, for which the French-language catalogue Sirio Tofanari – Sculptures d’Animaux was published in Florence in 1928, enriched with a small anthology of critical excerpts by Ugo Ojetti, Antonio Maraini, Roberto Papini, Vincenzo Bucci and Pietro Scarpa. Papini writes: “Tofanari observes and works. He observes the agility of the gazelle […], the feline musculature of the leopard […]. He looks at the owl and sees that it often likes to wink”[5]. In this last description, mention is made of the tiny but precious silver Owl, which departs from the repertoire of exotic fauna to show us a native species with a somewhat bizarre appearance conferred by the half-closed eye in glass paste, accompanied by perfect plumage chiselled with lively decorative rhythm. In other sculptures such as the Panther, on the other hand, the detailed naturalism yields in favour of a greater simplification of planes, which does not fail to capture the animal’s temperament, an aspect that led ceramist Melandri to define Tofanari as an “investigator of nature [who] deserves admiration for his accurate study, fervid ingenuity and particular personality”[6].

Elena Lago

[1] U. Ojetti, VIII Esposizione Internazionale d’Arte in Venezia, exhibition catalogue, Milano, Fratelli Treves Editore, 1909, p. 26.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Mostra individuale di Serafino Macchiati, Sirio Tofanari, Mario Sotgia, exhibition catalogue (Milan, Galleria Pesaro May 1923), Milan, Bestetti & Tumminelli, 1923 , pp. 19-20.

[4] U. Nebbia, La Quattordicesima Biennale veneziana, “Emporium”, LIX, 1924 , 354, p. 360.

[5] Sirio Tofanari – Sculptures d’Animaux, Florence, Imprimerie e Ariani, 1928.

[6] P. Melandri, Terza Biennale romana. Scultura e arte sacra, “La donna italiana”, II, 1925, 1, p. 488.