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Edoardo Villa
(b. 1915)
Edoardo
Villa is one of South Africa's foremost sculptors. He was
born in Bergamo, Italy where he studied at the Andrea Fontini
Art School. While studying sculpture in Milan, Villa was conscripted
into the army at the outbreak of World War II. His first experience
of South Africa was that of a prisoner of war in 1942. After
his release he remained in that country to pursue a career
as a sculptor. That decision has not wavered for almost six
decades.
From his conventional heads and figures of the 1940s, Villa
moved progressively through stylized figuration to structural
abstraction. The universality of humankind is a theme that
dominates his work. On first viewing, many of his sculptures
would seem to be entirely abstract, yet all are basically
figurative in concept. Classical art is welded inextricably
to the modern. Villa's work reveals both his European origin
and his intimate experience of Africa. It is this cross-cultural
synthesis, first seen in the cubist work of Picasso (who discovered
African art in Paris at the Trocadero) that characterizes
the quintessentially Euro-South African sculpture of Edoardo
Villa.
Even in his most abstract work, there are constant allusions
to human themes, in terms of structure, posture, attitudes,
relationships and circumstances. Villa's style developed significantly
in the 1950s, when the influence of the aggressive forms of
the African environment led him to create his first constructed
works, using abstract elements cut from sheets and rods of
steel, a medium he has used extensively and masterfully. Aside
from working in steel, Villa has also modeled works for bronze
and more recently began using the found shapes of polystrene
packaging.
Edoardo Villa was chosen to represent South Africa at the
Venice Biennal on five occasions and has been recognized with
awards at the São Paulo Biennales of 1957 and 1959. His work
has been shown in more than one hundred one-man and group
shows in Italy, Europe, England, Israel, South America, Africa
and the United States. In 1995, to celebrate the artist's
80th birthday, the Edoardo Villa Museum was officially opened
at the University of Pretoria, South Africa. Villa lives and
works at his home in Johannesburg, South Africa.
EDOARDO VILLA
EXHIBITIONS:
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1938 - Bergamo, Milan
1939 - Bergamo, Milan
1947 - Johannesburg Public Library
1949 - Bothner Gallery, Johannesburg
1950 - Gainsborough Gallery, Johannesburg
1951 - Galerie Vincente, Pretoria
1954 - International Art Club
1956 - Venice Biennale; Triennial of SA Art
1957 - SA Art on tour in USA; Helen de Leeuw
Gallery; Sao Paolo Biennale
1958 - Contemporary Transvaal Art; Venice Biennale
1959 - Artists of Fame and Promise, Johannesburg,
London
1960 - Artist of Fame and Promise, London; Joubert
Park, Johannesburg; Johannesburg Museum Show; Venice
Biennale; Triennial of SA Art
1962 - Egon Gunther Gallery, Johannesburg; Venice
Biennale
1963 - Works on tour in USA; Lusaka and Salisbury,
Rhodesia; Amadhlozi group in Italy; Sao Paolo Biennale
1964 - Lusaka and Salisbury, Rhodesia; Pretoria
Art Museum; Johannesburg Festival; Rembrandt Art Centre;
Cape Town Museum Show; Pretoria Museum Show; Venice
Biennale
1965 - Johannesburg Festival, Transvaal Academy;
London, Grosvenor Gallery; Durban Museum Show; Pretoria
Museum Show
1966 - Silver Medal at SA Breweries exhibition;
Grosvenor Gallery, London; Republic Festival, Pretoria
1967 - Egon Gunther Gallery, Johannesburg
1968 - Schlesinger Centre, Johannesburg
1969 -Transvaal Academy, Olivetti first prize,
Chamber of Mines gold medal
1969 - Sao Paolo Biennale
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1970 - Pretoria, Johannesburg, ten years retrospective;
Rhodes National Gallery, Salisbury; Johannesburg Museum
Show; Pretoria Museum Show
1973 - Lidchi Gallery, Johannesburg "Aspects of
Italian Art"
1974 - Contemporary SA Art, Athens, Greece; RSA
Exhibition, Pretoria Art Museum
1976 - Rand Afrikaans University, Johannesburg
1977 - Afrox Metalart, Guest Artist, Johannesburg
1978 - SA Art in Rhodsia, Sal!sbury Museum; Salisbury
Museum Show
1979 - Gold medal for sculpture from SA Academy
of Arts and Sciences
1980 - Afrox Metalart, Guest Artist, Johannesburg;
Retrospective of life's work, Rand Afrikaans University,
Johannesburg
1982 - Cape Town Triennial
1983 - Valparaiso Biennale
1984 - University of the Witwatersrand; Randburg
Municipality
1985 - Sculpture Show, Windhoek Southwest Africa
1987 - Johannesburg Museum Show
1988 - Standard Bank Festival of the Arts, Grahamstown,
Guest Artist
1989 - Pretoria Art Museum: 25 Years
1990 - Vita Awards Exhibition, Johannesburg;
University of Pretoria, Chancellor's Medal Awarded
1991 - Standard Bank Centre, Johannesburg, Guest
Artist
1993 - National Musuem Taipei, group show
1995 - Opening of Villa Museum, University of
Pretoria
1995 - V Biennale de sculpture, Monte Carlo
1999 - Treviglio/Bergamo - Museo Civico
2000 - Exhibition in garden sponsored byRAU;
Commune di Carrara, Italy
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