ANTONIO LIGABUE

Antonio Ligabue was born in Zurich , Switzerland , on 12 December 1899 to Maria Elisabetta Costa, originally from Cencenighe Agordino ( province of Belluno , Italy ), and was registered in the registry office with his mother's surname. On 18 January 1901 his mother married Bonfiglio Laccabue, who on the following 10 March recognised the child by giving him his own surname. ^[1] Antonio, however, as an adult, preferred to be called Ligabue (presumably because of the hatred he felt towards Bonfiglio, whom he considered to be the uxoricide of his mother Elisabetta, who died tragically in 1913 together with three brothers following food poisoning ^{[2] [3]} ). Even as a child, Ligabue never lived with his real family: since September 1900 , he was entrusted to Johannes Valentin Göbel and Elise Hanselmann, a childless Swiss-German couple, whom the artist always considered his parents; in particular, with Elise the artist had a deep, though troubled, bond. ^[1] Due to the difficult economic and cultural conditions of his adoptive family, they were forced to constantly move due to job insecurity. Therefore, the childhood of the young Antonio was characterised by great hardship, to which were added the diseases he suffered from ( rickets and goiter ), conditions which resulted in the compromise of the physical, mental and psychological development of the future artist. ^[1] His difficult character and the difficulties in his studies led him to change schools several times: first in St. Gallen , then in Tablat and finally in Marbach . From the latter institute, however, he was expelled after only two years, in May 1915 , for bad behaviour. ^[1] In the institute, however, Ligabue learned to read with a certain speed, and although he was not good at mathematics and spelling, he found constant relief in drawing. Having returned again to his adoptive family, they subsequently moved to Staad , where he led a rather wandering life, working occasionally as a farm labourer. Between January and April 1917 , after a violent nervous breakdown, he was admitted to a psychiatric hospital in Pfäfers for the first time. After being discharged, he returned to his adoptive family, who had moved to Romanshorn , but only stayed there for short periods, alternating his returns home with aimless wanderings, during which he worked as a farmer or looked after animals on the farms. ^[1] In 1919 , after having attacked his adoptive mother during an argument, he was expelled from Switzerland following her complaint. He was sent to Italy and on 9 August he arrived in Gualtieri , the birthplace of his father Bonfiglio Laccabue. ^[1] However, not knowing a word of Italian , he fled in an attempt to return to Switzerland, but was found and brought back to Gualtieri, where he lived thanks to the help of the Carri Hospice. Subsequently, he continued, as he did in Switzerland, to practice a nomadic life, working occasionally as a labourer or farmhand on the banks of the Po . It was during that period that he began to paint. Artistic expression gave relief to his anxieties, mitigated his obsessions and filled his solitude. ^[1] But it was only in 1928 that, thanks to his meeting withRenato Marino Mazzacurati , who understood his genuine art and taught him the use of oil colors, Ligabue came to the choice to dedicate himself completely to painting and sculpture . In 1937 he was admitted to the San Lazzaro psychiatric hospital in Reggio Emilia due to his manic-depressive states, which sometimes resulted in violent attacks of self-harm or against others; he returned to this hospital twice more, from 23 March 1940 to 16 May 1941 and from 13 February 1945 to 6 December 1948. After his second stay in the hospital, he was released by the sculptor Andrea Mozzali, who hosted him in his home in Guastalla . During the Second World War , he acted as an interpreter for the German troops. In 1945, for having hit a German soldier with a bottle, he had to return to the hospital in Reggio Emilia for the last time. After leaving the hospital, he stayed alternately at the Carri di Gualtieri poorhouse and at the house of friends. ^[1] At the end of the 1940s , critical interest in his works began to grow. ^[1] In 1957 , Severo Boschi, a journalist for Il Resto del Carlino , and the photojournalist Aldo Ferrari visited him in Gualtieri: this resulted in a report in the newspaper with images that are still famous today. The 1950s marked the beginning of the artist's most prolific period and, after his presence in group exhibitions, the first personal exhibitions also began. ^[1] In 1955 , he held his first personal exhibition in Gonzaga , on the occasion of the Millenary Fair . In 1961 , the exhibition was set up at the Galleria La Barcaccia in Rome , which marked his national consecration. On 18 November 1962 the artist was struck by hemiparesis and, after being treated in various hospitals, he found hospitality again at the Carri hospice in Gualtieri, where he died on 27 May 1965. ^[1]

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