PAOLO STACCIOLI

Staccioli began painting as a teenager, and held his first solo exhibition in 1973. He worked in ceramics and terracotta bas-reliefs at the end of the 1980’s, experimenting with glazes and oxygen-reduction firing, and moved on to lustres, employing clays oxides and salts, under the guidance of the master-craftsman Umberto Santandrea from Faenza. Staccioli eventually gave up painting altogether to focus on ceramic-based artwork, transferring his subjects to vases and other ceramic objects. During the 1990’s, he began to experiment with plastic, producing interesting results.

To inaugurate the Museum Park of Poggio Valicaia in 2000, Staccioli molded a large horse ridden by a winged putto. He continues to work in his studio at Scandicci and Montelupo, molding figures of warriors, travelers on carts and boats, and, mosty recently, cardinals. His new figures are painted with lustres on ceramic objects and vases.

Staccioli is inspired by the Old Masters, and seeks to create a link between the ancient and traditional and his unique forms of expression. Though not formally trained in art, his natural skill and extraordinary imagination make him an outstanding self-taught painter, sculptor, and ceramist. For example, Staccioli includes classical fragments from Paolo Uccello’s “La Bottiglia of San Romano” or objects from his childhood in his newly-constructed visual language, creating dream-like spaces and compositions.

This technical curiosity combined with creative vitality has led Staccioli to explore the expressive potential of ceramics, with its innate material malleability. He begins a piece by working with fragments rather than full forms, then deconstructs, molds, cuts, and re-arranges the fragments into shapes and spaces which reflect the imaginary forms that emerge from his soul and are completed by his treatment of the brush to give them even more dimension.

Staccioli’s decisive strokes and delicate contrasts between opaque and bright tones define his “pulcinelle” (small hens), horses, dolls, or cherubini. He is able to create shadings which allow light to enter the dull material and create delicate effects of depth and atmosphere. The figures that appear to emerge from fantasy worlds which populate his sculptures are created by high relief, bas-relief, or paint. The liberal expressiveness of these figures is always a delight and surprise, even when they appear repeatedly on his works, and express a serene solitude without reference to divinities or mythology.

Horses are a subject that Staccioli particularly loves, and are represented as virtual and immortal survivors of a battle, rising as tormented giants with bellies swollen from the strain. He poses his horses on a vertical axis in all his works, emphasizing the sense of upward movement that creates a sensation of relief and liberation.

2019

“Guerrieri, Cavalli, Centauri”, Magazzini del sale, Palazzo Pubblico, Siena

2018

“Trasparenze, Maranghi / Staccioli”, Istituto di Cultura Italiana di Stoccarda, a cura di Kunstgalerie Bech, Stuttgart, 2018

2017

“…Rame, terra, fuoco” di Paolo Staccioli, Ipogeo I Giardini di S. Agostino, Matera

“Paolo Staccioli. Viaggio onirico”, Museo Giuliano Ghelli, San Casciano in Val di Pesa (Firenze)

“Staccioli/Bavia/Caplin“, N20 Gallery, London

“Paolo Staccioli. Un viaggio immobile. Incontri fermate attese”, Galleria Lupo ‘Art, Palermo

“Paolo Staccioli. Memorie. Ceramiche e bronzi”, Galleria d’Arte Athena, Livorno

“Paolo Staccioli. Dialoghi“, Arianna Sartori Arte & Object Design, Mantova

2016

“Giovanni Maranghi e Paolo Staccioli. Incontro/ Begegnug”, Engel & Voelkers and Friends, Feurbach, Stuttgart, 2016

“Luminosity. Ceramics by Paolo Staccioli”, Hammond Museum, North Salem, New York, 2016

“Seminare arte. Paolo Staccioli”, Boutique Hotel zum Rosenbaum, Nals, Süd Tirol, 2016

2015

“Il viaggiatore immobile. Paolo Staccioli”, Ciemmeci Spazio Arte, Empoli

2014

“Paolo Staccioli”, Galleria Pio Fedi, Firenze

“Paolo Staccioli. Sculture recenti: ceramiche ” bronzi”, Galleria Arianna Sartori, Mantova

Danilo Fusi, “Paolo Staccioli, La luna, il sole e l’anima delle cose”, Museo di Arte Contemporanea Lu.C.C.A.

Collettiva “Overlooking Garden”, Villa La Versiliana, Marina di Pietrasanta (LU)

Paolo Staccioli & Renzo Galardini “Toskanische Fingerabdrücke ” Impronte toscane”,

Galerie Lacke & Farben, Berlin

Collettiva “Gioielli d’artista. La tradizione della modernità”, Ente Cassa di Risparmio di Firenze, Firenze

Paolo Staccioli “La Superficie dell’Equilibrio“, Giardini di Villa Salviati, Firenze

Paolo Staccioli “Poetica inquietudine“, Galleria Artespressione, Milano

“Le ceramiche di Paolo e Paola Staccioli”, Officina Profumo ” Farmaceutica di Santa Maria Novella, Firenze

“Paolo Staccioli. Le cortesie, le audaci imprese io canto”, Loggia della Limonaia, Palazzo Medici Riccardi, Firenze

2013

“Paolo Staccioli. Il Primato della storia”, Terme il Tettuccio di Montecatini (PT)

Ex Mulino Antonibon, Nove (VI) esposizione personale in occasione della Festa della Ceramica

Installazione di un Guerriero in bronzo in una piazza di Pontassieve (FI)

2012

“Il guerriero e la farfalla. Paolo e Paola Staccioli”, Ex convento Santa Chiara, Nobile Contrada del Nicchio, Siena

Pietrasanta, Piazza del Duomo (lato campanile) e Galleria Paoli

2011

“Opere/Sculptures”, Museo Horne, Firenze

2009

Galleria Selective Art, Paris

Istituto di Cultura Italiana, Washington

2008

Istituto di Cultura Italiana, New York

FuLe International Ceramic Art Museum, Fuping, Cina

2007

“I Segni della Terra”, Museo Archeologico di Fiesole

2005

“Le gioiose ceramiche di Paolo Staccioli”, Museo delle Porcellane, Palazzo Pitti, Firenze