As one of Libero Andreotti’s most promising students, Giannetto Mannucci began teaching the plastic arts and drawing at the Institute of Professional Initiation immediately after graduating from the Porta Romana Art Institute. Included in the artistic and literary circle headed by Carena and Andreotti, the young man participated with other students at the VI Regional Tuscan Art Exhibition in 1932. Mannucci exhibited two portraits in the room next to the one dedicated to the master. The following year he took part in the Union of Fine Arts’ first exhibition with his Portrait of My Sister, a terracotta-coated plaster bust with considerable formal elegance. Ugo Ojetti cited it in the Corriere della Sera as one of the best in the exhibition. It was reproduced by Aniceto del Massa in the magazine "Arte Mediterranea". In 1934, the young sculptor participated in the XIX Venice Biennale with his portrait of the lawyer Ginnasi. At the same time, he worked as a medalist in the sculptor Mannucci’s business (winning 2nd prize in the 1934 Firenze fiorita competition) and as a set designer for events in the Littoriali della Culture and Maggio Musicale in Florence. In 1936, his name appeared, with a large bas-relief of the dome’s construction, between those of Moschi and Griselli, to decorate Giovanni Michelucci’s Palazzina Reale in Florence’s new railway station. That same year ,Mannucci returned to the Venice Biennale, exhibiting two portraits and Ninetta, a lifesize marble figure. At the following Biennale, he exhibited the stone face of the Ragazza di Maremma (Girl from Maremma). In 1937, he took part in the Paris International Exposition, where he received a gold medal.He was also recognized three years later at the Milan Triennale. After the war, Mannucci was assigned to restoring the marble friezes of the reconstructed Santa Trinita Bridge. He continued to exhibit at the Biennale in those years. In 1954, he exhibited three portrait-medals and, in 1956, he was asked to do a personal exhibition of fifteen bronzes. He was academic resident of the Accademia delle Arti del Disegno, teacher at the artistic high school, and full professor with Emanuele Cavalli at the Scuola Libera del Nudo (Free School of the Nude). He received commissions for numerous public works in various locations, including the bas-reliefs in the foyer of Florence’s Teatro Verdi in 1949, the Mater Dei bell for Giotto's Campanile in 1956, the Saint George for the Autostrada del Sole’s management offices in 1961, and two figures for the INA offices in Rome and Bologna.
(Woman in the Sun) A young drawing teacher, Giannetto Mannucci cultivated this discipline throughout his life, as shown by his 1978 personal exhibition at the Accademia delle Arti del Disegno, at which drawings of the Apuan Alps, executed with a freedom that verged on abstraction, were exhibited together with eleven bronzes. In this drawing, Mannucci maintained the clear and distinct composition with lines characteristic of his sculptures. The confident line with which the artist drew this swimmer’s supple pose is tangible proof of this,from the Adolescent, the sculpture displayed at the Paris International Exposition to the bas-relief of the Three Graces, now at the Modern Art Gallery in Florence; from the Half-Sitting Nude to the terracotta Nude; from the Woman with a Basket to the very lissom marble statue of Ninetta, exhibited at the XX Venice Bienniale in 1936. The drawing of the Donna al sole was executed in the summer of 1942 in Civitavecchia where Mannucci was serving in the Engineers Corps. It was published that same year in the magazine "Il Casanova”.
mm 154x210
(Boy on the beach) This work comes from the same album of studies as the previous drawing, where Mannucci practiced portraying figures at the beach. The reclining boy could be the ideal companion to the Donna al sole as the positions of the limbs – one arm folded over his head and a bent leg – are presented, from different angles, in a balanced homogeneity of compositional rhythms. A poet of feminine beauty, Mannucci offered more rarely samples of the male nude., in both drawing and sculpture, Among the few examples, we could mention those graphic notes of the Egyptian Scribe in the Louvre, executed more for purpose and meaning. Drawings from 1948 were made on sheets from a prescription pad of a sculpture that, as the artist noted under one of his drawings, had attracted him for its "superlative inner strength". In sculpture, the rare examples of male nudity were the "heroic" ones of the builders of Santa Maria del Fiore’s dome in the bas-relief of the same bname in the Palazzina Reale at the Florence railway station, in addition to the naked teenager in the Seated Swimmer.
mm 154x210
A young drawing teacher, Giannetto Mannucci cultivated this discipline throughout his life, as shown by his 1978 personal exhibition at the Accademia delle Arti del Disegno, at which drawings of the Apuan Alps, executed with a freedom that verged on abstraction, were exhibited together with eleven bronzes. In this drawing, Mannucci maintained the clear and distinct composition with lines characteristic of his sculptures.
mm 320x200