Giuseppe Mazzullo
Giuseppe Morgana - CC3.0
Giuseppe Mazzullo, born in Graniti, was a great Italian artist and sculptor.
He was born in Graniti in 1913 to a modest family: his father Rosario was a master builder and his mother, Giovanna Malita, took care of the family.
Due to a bad fall as a boy he was unable to follow in his father's footsteps, so he first attended a tailor's workshop in Taormina and then in Rome. During his stay in Rome, he came into contact with some sculptors and decided to move to Umbria where he enrolled in the sculpture school which was part of the Academy of Fine Arts of Perugia. A few years later, for family reasons, he returned to Sicily and in this period he dedicated himself in particular to life drawing. One of his first most important works dates back to this era, Pazza, a sculpture in wax and bronze which was exhibited at the National Art Quadrennial in Rome in 1935. He created several public works: the dedicated monument to the war dead of Francavilla and Gaggi. He subsequently obtained the teaching position at the Art Institute of Rome and his house became a meeting place for artists of the caliber of Ungaretti, Silori, Gattuso and Zavattini.
In the Seventies he returned to Sicily, to Taormina, where he founded a large artistic laboratory dedicated mainly to lava stone and granite sculpture. Important and monumental works belong to this period: the Liberazione in Barcellona Pozzo di Gotto, created in 1970; Musa in Messina, monument dedicated to Salvatore Pugliatti from 1977 and; The Rebirth in Salemi, 1986, one of his last works
Giuseppe Mazzullo died in Taormina on 25 August 1988. Due to the complexity and quality of his sculptures he is considered a unique figure in the panorama art of the twentieth century. His works are kept in prestigious public and private collections around the world.
In the sculptor's hometown, Graniti, there is the Museo Mazzullo which houses a collection of early works; It is based in Taormina, at the Palazzo Duchi di Santo Stefano, the Mazzullo Foundation, born following an agreement signed in 1981 by the artist and the then Mayor of Taormina, Nicolò Garipoli. The Superintendence of Cultural and Architectural Heritage has granted the Palazzo Duchi di Santo Stefano to the Foundation as a venue for exhibiting the most important sculptures by Giuseppe Mazzullo and as a venue for art exhibitions and conferences.
