Bust Of Beethoven In Patinated Bronze, Signed By Alfredo Pina

Bust of Beethoven, bronze with brown-green patina, signed by Alfredo PINA, Milanese sculptor (1887-1966. Italian school, circa 1910-1920. Lost wax casting. Foundry stamp: AG PARIS Alfredo PINA was a pupil of the Brerade Milan, the famous Academy of Fine Arts, where he received the national grand prize for sculpture in 1904. He moved to Paris at the age of 24, where he exhibited at the Salon des Artistes Français from 1911 to 1914, and where he enjoyed great success. After the war, he moved to Montparnasse where he frequented Zadkine, Bourdelle, Giacometti. But his work is mainly influenced by Auguste Rodin, of whom he was a pupil. They both seek, in the field of the portrait, to make the moments quiver of life. They create on the surface of their sculptures multiple facets on which the light plays and which restore the expressions of emotion and anguish of the characters. They modernized the ancient sculpture by creating "fragments of sculptures", bodies without arms, because: "the form is nothing, says Pina, if life does not penetrate it in all that one sees. It is better a few fragments of life, a beautiful torso or a harmonious head adapted to a shoulder, than a sadly academic complete body where nothing is alive or worth living". In 1920, Pina made an exhibition at the Allard gallery in Paris. Some works are already in museum collections: Beethoven at the Museum of Montpellier and Venice, Wagner at the Berlin Museum, Head of Christ at the Vatican Museum. During the war he settled in Nièvre, in the center of France, where he continued to work. He died in 1966. Many of his works are exhibited at the Musée de la Charité sur Loire, one of his sculptures is at the Rodin museum, another at the Bourdelle museum in Paris. In Montpellier: bust of Beethoven, at the Metropolitan Museum in New York: bust of Victor Hugo, at the Gallery of Modern Art in Rome: portrait bust. Yellow marble base, dimensions 20 x 20cm