CV

Franco Monti was born in Milan in 1931. From an early age he was interested in the arts, particularly sculpture and in the early 50’s he began modeling clay and carving stone anthropomorphic figures of abstract tendencies.

He dedicates himself to the study of the French school of ethnology and his interest in African art leads him to travel extensively in the West Sub-Saharan Africa since 1954 to further his learning of those cultures. Later his trips to Peru, Mexico and New Guinea contribute to expand his knowledge about the cultures which at that time were called "primitive". In the following years he promotes initiatives and organizes exhibitions to divulge the non-European arts in Italy and abroad.

Corresponding member of the Syndicat Français des Experts Professionnels en Œuvres d' Art de Paris since 1962, he is considered an expert on African sculpture to which he has dedicated over 30 years of field research. He collaborates as an expert for "primitive arts" publications of the publishers Fabbri and De Agostini. For some time he writes for “Corriere della Sera” in the renowned art page directed by the writer Dino Buzzati.

Since the early Eighties, he no longer travels to Africa and dedicates himself nearly exclusively to his passion, being a sculptor, which he has not stopped thinking about all these years. He chooses the island of Ibiza as a place to work as here he can find the right retreat to create forms that seem to take inspiration form the surrounding colours and nature.

He begins experimenting with different materials - wood, metal, cardboard, stone – and then chooses concrete to develop forms which he gives shades of color thanks to mineral pigments added to the concrete mix in the development phase. The works thus created are always unique specimens obtained by the artist’s accurate work of “subtraction” from the raw shape once it is free from its mold.

Since his first solo exhibition in 1996, Monti has shown his work in galleries and museums in Spain - Alicante, Barcelona, Ibiza, Palma de Mallorca – and Italy – Varese and Verona - Sculptures by Franco Monti are found in important collections of contemporary art, both in Spain and in Italy, including among others, the Panza di Biumo collection. In 2005 the first monographic book “Steles of color - The sculpture of Franco Monti" written by the renowned Spanish critic and art historian J.F. Yvars, is published. Franco Monti dies in Ibiza in 2008.

Examples of his works can be seen at the “Ambit Galeria d’ Art" in Barcelona, at the Galeria “Maneu” in Palma de Mallorca and at the “Espacio Micus” in Ibiza.