Edoardo Villa - Sculpture (1980)

Published by United Book Distributors, 1980, hardcover, large format, some wear to dust jacket otherwise condition: very good.

Edoardo Villa (19152011) was a notable South African sculptor of Italian descent who worked primarily in steel, and bronze.

n 1961, along with Cecil Skotnes, Cecily Sash, Giuseppe Cattaneo, and Sydney Kumalo, Villa made up the artist group Amadlozi (Zulu for ancestors) for the conscious appropriation of African sculptural traditions. Villa's work includes larger than life steel installations, such as Reclining Figure in Pieter Roos Park, Johannesburg. This work was intended as a play statue for children, paid for by Anglo American, selected by the Parktown and Westcliffe Heritage Trust and donated to the City of Johannesburg and unveiled by the Deputy Mayor of Johannesburg Councillor C.E. Fabel on 8 September 1984.

Edoardo Villa represented South Africa at the Venice Biennale on five occasions and he has received awards at the São Paulo Biennales of 1957 and 1959. He has exhibited in over a hundred shows in Italy, Europe, England, Israel, South America, Africa and the United States. In 1994/1995 Villa donated 140 small and 10 large works to the University of Pretoria. On 31 May 1995, to celebrate the artist's 80th birthday, the Edoardo Villa Museum was officially opened at the University of Pretoria, South Africa. Villa lived and worked at his home in Johannesburg, He was a friend of the artist and art collector, Vittorino Meneghelli, the author Jillian Becker and the architect Monty Sack.