Adolfo Wildt

BIOGRAPHY

EXHIBITIONS

CATALOGS

WORK

adolfo-wildt
Born into a very poor family of Swiss origin, Wildt is forced to leave school at the age of 9 and work as a goldsmith's apprentice. At the age of 11 he entered Giuseppe Grandi's workshop, where he learned to sculpt, and then he enrolled at the Brera Academy. In this period he met a rich Prussian collector, Franz Rose, who became his friend and patron, financing his works until 1912. In 1913, he was awarded the Prince Umberto Prize for his project for the fountain. The trilogy at the Munich Secession exhibition (now in the Humanitarian Society in Milan). In 1921 he founded a marble school in Milan; among his most famous students are Lucio Fontana, Fausto Melotti and Luigi Broggini. His style is influenced by the Secession and Art Nouveau. In his works, Wildt exalts the sense of silence, melancholy, suffering, but also of joy and delicacy, deforming his characters in a way similar to expressionist painters.