Cidonio Foundation, 1966-1973

Erminio Cidonio Foundation for carvers also called The Officina

In 1966 Erminio Cidonio showed up at my studio, which was in Rome at the time in Via Margutta • Palazzo Patrizi. He apologized for not having made an appointment. He had seen my work at my recent solo exhibit at the Gallery Il Carpine in Rome. He was very impressed with the work in the gallery, and also the work he saw in my studio. Right there on the spot, he invited me to work at his Foundation for carvers in Pietrasanta: The Officinia Cidonio.

Erminio was a tiny, gentle person, who looked a bit like Gandhi.

The  Officina  was  a  great  place  to  work  and  live;  access  was  only by invitation. Few months later, when I visited The Officina, I realized that  I  was  going  to  have the privilege of working with such masters as Isamu Noguchi, Arp, Moore. I was the only woman, the youngest of the distinguished group.

I started working there shortly after my initial visit in 1966, sharing a studio with Isamu Noguchi for the following 6/7 years. The Officina closed because of Erminio Cidonio’s death.

The Cidonio were three brothers. They owned all the quarries of the Versilia, including the Henraux and the Altissimo. Two of the brothers worked in the construction of bridges, roads and various urban developments around the world. Erminio instead, was interested in works of Art. He owned and managed the carving studio at the Henraux, where Arp, Moore, Marino Marini, Cascella, Pomodoro and many others had been invited to work at the very beginning when they were not as yet known by the general public. Two sculptures of each model were always made; one for the artist and one for Erminio Cidonio’s collection.

At the time, most of the sculptors preferred travertine for the realization of their sculptures. The sculptures were made and enlarged from plaster maquettes. Today, you can always tell the period that a sculpture was made by the stone that had been used.

Cidonio had a great collection, until the two brothers involved in urban constructions, went into bankruptcy. They had done major work for Iran. The Persians did not pay, and the banks took over all of the Cidonios’ properties, including the Art Collection.

After one year of this mess, Erminio was able to move out and open his new place ”The Officina”, where he invited carvers whose work he admired, to live and work.  Henry Moore felt strongly, that he would judge Artists on the basis that they understood human beings.

It would not be because they were clever in drawing or carving, or in painting or as designers; something of these qualities they must  naturally  have had,  but  their real greatness, to him, laid in their humanity.

During our lunch conversations, he told me certain details about his life, this is how I learned that he had worked as a miner and had married a very wealthy woman.

Noguchi, Arp, Moore and I were at The Officina at various periods, my room was below the little tower and above the offices. Cidonio had built a little house for Noguchi, no one else ever lived there but Isamu.

Eda was our cook and housekeeper, Enzino, Giorgio and Moreno were our help in locating stones, polishing, also they enlarged the tiny plaster maquettes  of  Moore and Arp . I  spent  very  long periods working at The Officina, as I did not make plaster models. I worked taille direct and my sculptures were born as I worked along. When the carving was too much  for  my  arms to  handle , I  would  require  the  help  of  assistants.

They  went along, with what I was doing, claiming that I made them work “blind”, as they would not see what I was trying to accomplish.

Finally, towards the end, as I approached what I was looking for, they could “see and understand”. My carvings, were always born on the spot. The first sculpture I made at the Officina was “ Gingko Biloba ”.

During my visit to the Shah and Shahbanou of Iran I had been taken to see a travertine quarry. It was red travertine called “Rosso Soraya” because they had discovered the quarry when he was still married to Soraya. I imported that travertine and used it to carve “ Gingko Biloba ”.

My first friend was Isamu Noguchi; we were both Americans with studios in New York. During the winter, we would often meet, to visit various exhibitions around New York and discuss what I called “the sculpture pollution” of those years.

The friendship remained, until he enlarged one of my sculptures to make a major monument, which was installed in front of the Society of Four Arts in Palm Beach, Florida.

After being very upset about the incident, I was happy that he liked my work so much, and that he had made a large sum of money by enlarging one of my carvings. One of my adventures at the Officina was meeting a very young handsome woman. Her business was to buy the sketches discarded by the artists. Every 3-4 months, she would stop by at  the Officina on her way to Picasso’s studio in Mougins.

On one of these trips, she took some photographs of my sculptures that I had allowed her to take. Apparently, she had showed them to Picasso and when she returned, she told me what Picasso had said when viewing my work in the photographs : “Her work is excellent,  it is now time that she should work on her legend” . I am afraid, I was never good at that.

Alexander Kasser was a major collector of Marino Marini sculptures and mine. He came to Tuscany every summer, together with his wife Elisabeth, his daughter Mary, who was an attorney married to Steve Mochary, also an attorney, and his son Michael.

The Kassers introduced me to Marino Marini and his wife. The Marinis owned a home near me, as well as Mary the daughter of Moore. Mary Moore, was a good friend of my son Carlo, in the summer she always visited with us and Carlo would invite her at our place for barbecues. She later married a man that worked for her father. Shortly after, they went to live very far away (I believe in Australia). She was the only daughter, Moore was in great pain, it nearly broke his heart.

Marino and I both had summer birthdays and the Kassers would give a big party, that was much fun, inviting also Lipchitz and Moore. Marino was a wonderful friend to have, also because he liked my work.  He wanted to be called by his first name only “Marino” and he always called me by my first name: “that is all you need, for there is only one Carla like you”. Marino’s wife was his best promoter and oversaw the publication of his books and business relations, the opening of the two museums dedicated to his work, one in Pistoia – his place of birth – and the other in Florence.  Our work was very different, his always had to do with the horse and a chevalier, whereas I, being a storyteller, told myself stories that I would put into shapes and colors. I never made maquettes to be enlarged.  Working “taille directe” was my joy and excitement.

To see it all happen and changing as I carved along.

There was a joke going on between Yula Lipchitz and Marino, she would say: “ Hey Marino, you made all that money always making a horse ” and since she arrived covered with jewelleries, he would reply to her: “You look like a Christmas Tree”.

The story goes, that in the early years, the Liptchitz went back and forth between Italy and America by boat, and Jacques got friendly with a jeweler. He traded his sculptures with jewelleries for his wife.

When the Cidonio Foundation closed in 1972/73 because of Erminio’s death, we all moved out. Isamu and I were the last ones to leave as we had more work to finish. I had met Pierre Matisse in New York, after seeing my sculptures “in the flesh” and “sur place” at The Officina, he purchased two of them and wrote me a letter of appreciation concerning my work. When I returned to New York in the Fall, he was not as yet ready to make me an offer to represent me, I therefore made the mistake to accept a solo exhibition at Gimpel, who later destroyed five of my major sculptures by careless handling and was responsible for my becoming “blind in rage and despair” (see page 18 Part One of the book about my life).  

His sons did not want to continue with their father’s great love.  Before  dying,  Erminio  asked Isamu  and  I  to come to  the   hospital. He wanted to know if we would take over The Officina, his life jewel.  We did not want to hurt him, nor did we want to start a battle with his sons. We told Erminio, that as soon as he came home from the hospital, we would call the notary and take care of what he wanted to do.  We knew he was dying; that was our way not to disappoint him and to give him hope.

I started to search somewhere in the hills of Pietrasanta, for a place where I could move all my carvings and works-in-progress.

On a Sunday in 1972, I bumped into a little office with some pictures of places for sale in the window. I spoke to a fellow there, and explained that I needed lots of space for little money. He told me that more than ten years before, a lady had offered for sale a huge old olive mill for what seemed to him a small sum. Should he look for her ? There was one limitation: she would only sell it to an artist.

A few days later, he called me to announce with great enthusiasm, that the place was still available. More important, the owner was still alive, and the price she was asking had remained the same as ten years before. Indeed, I bought the olive mill only after she had come to The Officina Cidonio to see what quality of Art I was making, and approved of it.

I had bought a spider-web built by the Borboni di Parma at the end of the XVIth century, and it took me more twelve years, to bring this wonderful spider-web back to life.

So that I could live, work and have a museum of my life’s work.  It was a major reconstruction job; I was always one of the masons.  Only I and two masons worked on the place; electricity and heating were contracted out. Many years after the initial twelve, were spent putting the place together, installing sculptures and purchasing all the tools I needed for my carving studio – stone yard.

To  earn  enough  to  continue  the reconstruction  of the  mill, I had to honor the commissions I was lucky to receive. The new work was then shipped to my New York Studio at 140 Thompson Street in Soho.

Isamu loved my mill and wanted to come to work with me, I felt that if I allowed him to move in, he would soon become his studio, I would end up working for him. He insisted that I should go to work at his studio on the island of Shikoku. I had just purchased the olive mill, which was to become my Working Place • Sculpture Garden in Tuscany, therefore I could not financially afford it.

I was so busy, with all the projects that I had undertaken that I was fortunately helped to overcome Erminio’s death, the loss of his total commitment and advice concerning my work, which he sincerely admired; also the loss of the wonderful working and living life I had at  The Officina.  The great friends I had made while there, were also lost except Isamu and Marino.

I had my studio in New York for approximately 35 years. My experiences there, were both fabulous and tragic. However I always came back to Tuscany each year for 4-5 months for the joy of coming here, and I returned to New York with the same great joy and enthusiasm. I eventually sold 140 Thompson in 1996 after my second round with cancer and the cancellation of my exhibit at Leo Castelli one month before its opening.

In 2001, my husband Roberto went to his little cloud of peace. He was an Italian Formula 1 champion with Ferrari; he also made wonderful wine from his vineyards in Puglia. My dear son Carlo, an electrical engineer with a master’s degree from Stanford University, in California, and with several patents to his name, lives and works in Paris. I am in Tuscany alone, in my Working Place•Home•Sculpture Garden Museum, surrounded by some of my lifetime work and the new paintings I make every spring and summer. Not copying the flowers but directly with my wonderful flowers. I write letters like other people go to Church.

Comments

[Arnie Zinn]

Was it Mrs. Kasser that you mention above that stopped by Officina and then visited Picasso every 3-4 months in his studio in Mougins?