Cleto Tomba - Doctor Balanzone Statue In Polychrome Terracotta

Cleto Tomba (Castel San Pietro Terme (BO) 1898 – Bologna 1987).

Doctor Balanzone, cold-painted polychrome terracotta statue, resting on a wooden base, 1960s.

Work signed in paste and dry T stamp. Also bears dedication and signature under the wooden base.

H 19 cm. (+3) – (wooden base cm.9x9x3)

CLETO TOMBA, a very fine modeler, a specialist in the maximum characterization of characters, studied at the School of Art of Palazzo Ercolani in Bologna and continued his education at the Academy of Fine Arts, under the guidance of Pasquale Rizzoli, graduating in 1917.

In 1924 he moved to Bologna where he became friends with the artists Nino Bertocchi, Sandrino Cervellati, Melchiorre Bega, Nino Corazza and Ferruccio Giacomelli.

Cleto was already an established sculptor at this time, with a very personal style, so much so that he was invited in 1928 to the XIV Venice Biennale, participating with the plaster sculpture «The March on Rome», while the following year he participated in the International Art Exhibition in Barcelona, ​​exhibiting the sculpture «La giocosa» «Manzoniana», re-proposed at the Sindacale in Turin two years later.

Starting from the mid-1930s he abandoned monumental subjects to create small-format works, the “figurines” that constitute the effigy of the daily life of the poor and the rich, with which he participated in numerous national, international and trade union exhibitions.

In 1937 he obtained the chair of figure and modeled ornamentation at the Liceo Artistico in Bologna, a chair that he occupied until 1968. In 1960 he was appointed Academician of San Luca.

It is progressively from the 1930s that Tomba also dedicates himself to the production of small genre figures and humorous groups in painted terracotta, with which he participates in numerous exhibitions. It is often the memories of childhood, of affections, of family, of the simple people of Castel San Pietro and the Bolognese countryside that emerge from Cleto Tomba's work, together with famous characters and groups inspired by literature. His ironic and irreverent figurines investigate without indulgence and with rare attention, vices and virtues, passions and dignity of a life that flows inexorably. the arrogance of lawyers and judges in wigs and the effects of their sentences, the gossip on the street corner, the illusion of a great love, the naivety of a polite little soldier on leave who waits sitting on the worn sofa of a brothel, the ruthless gossips of the village.

Cleto Tomba's plastic works have garnered acclaim throughout the Italian and international scene with a simple and immediate language, especially after the successful exhibition that, at the request of Enzo Biagi, he organized at the Galleria Gussoni in Milan.