Leonardo Castellani (engraver)

Leonardo Castellani (1896-1984) was an Italian engraver and painter, mainly active depicting landscapes with chalcography.

Biography

Born in Faenza to a furniture maker, he moved to Cesena with his family, and studied there till 1913, when he enrolled in the Accademia di Belle Arti di Firenze, where he studied sculpture along with Osvaldo Licini. After serving in the armies during the first World War, he works in the studio of the sculptor Ettore Ferrari in Rome, where he meets the Futurist Giacomo Balla. He returns to Cesena where he works with ceramics, but by 1928-1930 he begins to concentrate on his engravings. He becomes a teacher of Calcography for the Scuola del Libro in Urbino.

He remains in Urbino most of his life. After the Second World War, he publishes a number of journals and books containing his engravings, including Quaderni di un calcografo (1955), Cronache d’Amore in versi (1968), Giornate lunghe in Sardegna (1969), 13 Canzonette (1971), Invito in Sicilia (1973), and Donne donne così sia (1979).

In 1986 his widow and sons donated many works to the town of Urbino, to form the nucleus of the Raccolta Castellani exhibited now in the ex-Collegio Raffaello di Urbino.^[1]

References

1. Biography from Sistema Provinciale Arte Contemporanea of Pesaro and Urbino, quoting Floriano De Santi, La donazione Castellani, Fondazione Umberto Mastroianni, 2005, p. 69.