Antonio Ligabue
Antonio Ligabue ( born December 18, 1899 in Zurich, Switzerland, † May 27 1965 in Gualtieri, Italy ) was an Italian artist.
Life
Antonio Ligabue was born in 1899 in Zurich. The circumstances of childhood and youth are as much in his biography, in the dark. His mother, Elisabetta Costa, a full- wandertes to Switzerland housemaid from Cencenighe, Belluno dies early. The father is unknown. Ligabue comes in different foster families, including those in St. Gallen, then in the orphanage of Marbach, from which he is rejected with 15 years of bad conduct. At 18, he is forcibly interned because of behavioral problems in the psychiatric ward Plafers, two years later, he is recognized for vagrancy and petty crime in Switzerland.
He was taken against his will by Gualtieri, where the first husband of his mother, Bonfiglio Laccabue lives. Time life Ligabue will reject the stepfather and called, to distance themselves from the assigned family name Laccabue, Ligabue. He is in the small village quickly became suspicious of outsiders and nerd, lives for years lonely as a savage in a crowded with Lehmskulturen own cabin in the woods on the bank of the Po. His sculptural and artistic talent he has worked as a billboard painter for gas- animal border showman, otherwise he earns a living as a day laborer ridiculed and road workers.
Discovery by Marino Mazzacurati
The then living in Gualtieri painter Marino Mazzacurati, one of the founders of the Scuola Romana, find him inside his hut and tells him his studio. Unbegrudgingly he recognizes the genuine and original talent Ligabues. Ligabue soon learns how to deal with oil colors and other techniques, but he soon quarreled with Mazzacurati. The following reconciliation, but both go their separate ways, with Mazzacurati supports the obviously mentally troubled himself beating with stones and tortured by desperation and paranoid attacks Ligabue from afar. During the war years Ligabue is temporarily housed in psychiatric hospitals. To distinguish himself from his environment, he uses a for others only partially understandable Mischidiom from German and Italian. The falls on the occupying Germans, and he is forced to work as a translator for the Wehrmacht, which is not conducive to its popularity in Gualtieri the postwar period.
1961 Ligabue the first personal exhibition in Rome, which makes him abruptly beyond the borders of Italy famous. He can not deal with the now ample flow of money to continue insulted and accused the lonely heart its surroundings, trying to harm him. He died on 27 May 1965 at the poorhouse of Gualtieri, while simultaneously held an exhibition of his paintings in Reggio Emilia. Since then, his reputation established as one of the most important Italian artists of the " art brut " always on.
Ligabues art style
The Ligabues style could be described as a mixture of Henri Rousseau, Vincent van Gogh and Expressionism describe. However, take the view that it was to " Naive Art " not to, this lacks the evoked idyll. Image issues are largely natural and hunting scenes, prey ravening tiger, sometimes landscapes and townscapes of the Po Valley to Gualtieri. What is striking is the large number of impressive self-portraits from always the same perspective. Ligabue often arises with a housefly in the face or on the temples represents: a reference to the fact that he was self-confident, stand just outside of the "normal ". It was narrated that he repeatedly struck with stones on a spot on his head, where were the "bad thoughts." This wound can often be seen on his self-portraits.
In the city Gualtieri, a museum was opened with pictures from the estate Ligabues. A 180 minutes long, in 1978 by the Italian television produced film of the Sicilian director Salvatore Nocita about him in 1979 broadcast on German television.