Gianfranco Meggiato

Beautiful Kinetic Bronze Sculpture "La Perle Nera", Museum exhibition history

2016

Inspired by biomorphic forms and humankind’s “tortuous path towards self-awareness,” Gianfranco Meggiato creates inward-looking abstract sculptures that he calls “introsculptures.” 

Born in Venice, in 1963, Meggiato studied stone, bronze, wood and ceramic sculpture at the city’s Istituto Statale d’Arte. Influenced by such 20th-century masters as Constantin Brâncuși, Alexander Calder and Henry Moore, Meggiato’s talent for sculpture captured the attention of artists and critics from his teens. “At the age of 16, I was invited to exhibit in a group show in St. Mark’s Square organized by the Municipality [of Venice] for emerging young artists,” he told Forbes magazine. “I presented my work Transenna in mild stone. Its interplay of solid and empty spaces, light and shadow already contained the seed of my future artistic research.”

The relationship between solid form and open space serves as the basis of Meggiato’s figurative and abstract sculptures. For instance, in his outsize bronze Cubo con Cubo (2016), a perfectly polished cube sits enmeshed in a geometric web. In his elegant Sera Sole (2020), a golden sphere sits in a nest of tangled bronze.

Since 1998, Meggiato has participated in numerous major exhibitions and art fairs throughout North America, Europe, Asia, Australia and the Middle East. In 2011 and 2013, he was invited to join the Italian pavilions at the Venice Biennale. 

Recently, his monumental sculptures have been featured in public installations, including The Garden of the Silent Muses at Catanzaro, in 2017; The Spiral of Life at Manifesta 12 in Palermo, in 2018; the solo exhibition “Quantum Man: There is no Future without Memory” in Sicily, in 2021; and a revival of The Spiral of Life set up in 2022 by the Pecci Museum and Prato City Council. Meggiato’s installations won the ICOMOS-UNESCO Award. 

On 1stDibs, discover a range of Gianfranco Meggiato sculptures.