Emilio Greco

Emilio Greco was an Italian sculptor who was born on October 11, 1913, in Catania, Italy, and died on April 5, 1995, in Rome. He primarily created bronze and marble figurative works, with a focus on female nudes and portraits.

Greco began his apprenticeship with a stonemason at the age of 13, and later studied at the Academy of Art in Palermo. Although he started exhibiting his works in Rome in 1943, he did not gain widespread recognition until after World War II. He held his first solo exhibition in 1946, and in 1948, he became a teaching assistant at the Artistic Secondary School in Rome.

Throughout his career, Greco's subject matter remained consistent, primarily creating refined and elongated figures with an assertive balance that reflected the Mannerist tradition in Italian art. However, in some of his works, he also used expressive and luminous surface treatments that paralleled the work of Giacomo Manzù and Marino Marini.

Greco's notable works include designing one of the bronze doors of the Cathedral at Orvieto from 1961 to 1964, and creating the monument to Pope John XXIII in Saint Peter's from 1965 to 1967. In 1974, the Greco Garden, dedicated to his works, was opened at the Open Air Museum in Hakone, Japan. In 1991, a group of Greco's works, donated by the artist to the city of Orvieto, was placed on permanent display at the Palazzo Soliano.