Gipsoteca Giuseppe Graziosi

In the ground floor of Modena's Palazzo dei Musei, one room holds the life's work of sculptor Giuseppe Graziosi: terracotta sketches, original plaster models and two hundred graphic sheets, given by the artist's heirs in 1984. The gallery traces a Modenese artist known for depictions of peasant life and sculptural research influenced by Rodin.

Why it matters

A gipsoteca is a plaster-cast collection, and this one preserves the working brain of a sculptor. The Gipsoteca Giuseppe Graziosi was instituted in 1984, when the artist's heirs donated a substantial group of his plastic, pictorial and graphic works to the city; since 1994 it has been installed on the ground floor of the Palazzo dei Musei, the museum palace that also houses the Galleria Estense and the civic collections. Graziosi, who lived from 1879 to 1942, moved from social verism toward expressive research after seeing Rodin's work at first hand. Peasant life remained a central subject. The collection also preserves works by the sculptor of Modena's Albinelli Market fountain.

What to notice

The collection includes about seventy plastic works, among them terracotta bozzetti and original plaster models that reveal Graziosi's process across materials. More than two hundred graphic works span drawing, etching, aquatint and lithography. Just over ten paintings complete the collection; some large works are displayed in the representative halls of Palazzo Comunale. The later collection includes small bronzes, an engraved Via Crucis series and the artist's photographic archive of more than two thousand negatives, documenting how he arranged and revised his models.

Context and history

Graziosi's career moved from social realism toward expressive research after seeing Rodin's sculpture, while maintaining a lifelong interest in rural subjects such as labourers and their families. In 1984 his children, Paolo and Rosetta Graziosi Vespignani, donated a substantial group of his works to Modena. After an initial home in the former San Paolo educational institute, the collection moved in 1994 to its present rooms on the ground floor of Palazzo dei Musei.