1925–1931: monuments, awards and major exhibitions
Between 1925 and 1931 Alimondo Ciampi reached full artistic maturity. These were the years of public monuments, major solo exhibitions, official awards and the consolidation of his reputation within the Italian artistic scene.
War memorials
In 1925 Ciampi won the competition for the war memorial of Rufina with a composition dedicated to the “Passage of the Hero in the embrace of Winged Victory.” The figure of Victory was modeled on his daughter Gemma.
The project was selected for the quality of the sculptural group and for the harmony between architecture and sculpture within the urban setting for which it was designed.
That same year Ciampi also won the competition for the war memorial of Casellina e Torri in Scandicci. Here he replaced the traditional dying soldier with a vigorous heroic figure carrying spear and shield.
In public monuments Ciampi avoided excessive rhetoric:
even heroic figures retain strong human dignity and sculptural balance.
Art and independence
Although working during the Fascist period, Ciampi remained substantially outside politics. Contemporary accounts describe him as patriotic and close to the monarchy, but never politically aligned.
For this reason his sculpture remained distant from official propaganda. His commissions mainly came from cultivated private patrons and from Florence’s bourgeois circles.
The exhibitions of 1925
1925 was also a year of intense exhibition activity. At the Turin Promotrice he presented the bronzes First Lights, First Sin, and the marble Youth.
In Florence, at the Spring Exhibition, he presented the bronze Milk and Blood!, a work that continued to represent one of the strongest themes of his artistic research.
The Gold Medal of 1926
In 1926 Ciampi returned to Turin with the bronzes Giotto, The Shy Girl and Graziella.
With Graziella he won the Gold Medal for sculpture at the Second Fine Arts Exhibition of Chioggia. The work was purchased by Countess Giuseppina Vianelli.
In Graziella, delicate modeling is combined
with a refined idealization of the female face.
1927 and Palazzo Pitti
In January 1927 Ciampi was promoted to Corresponding Academician of the Academy of the Arts of Drawing.
In spring he participated in the major National Exhibition at Palazzo Pitti, presenting seven works including Evening Prayer, the Portrait of musician Benvenuti, and The Kiss, also known as The Friends.
This last work was especially appreciated for the balance of its composition and the solidity of its modeling.
The major solo exhibitions of 1928
1928 marked one of the most important moments of Ciampi’s career. Between February and March he exhibited forty works together with painter Ruggero Focardi at the Cavalensi & Botti Gallery in Florence.
The exhibition brought together a wide part of his production: marbles, bronzes, plasters and terracottas.
The catalogue introduction was written by Llewelyn Lloyd, who emphasized the sensitivity with which Ciampi modeled children, female figures and nudes.
“The outlines of his nudes and children’s heads
are followed with the same affection
with which the artist once caressed those forms.”
In March of that year he was further elevated to Resident Academician.
A few months later he exhibited twenty-nine works at the prestigious Pesaro Gallery in Milan.
Critics highlighted the expressive strength and simplicity of his sculpture, capable of combining emotional depth with formal clarity.
Montecatini and the Permanent Prize
In 1930 Ciampi took part in the annual exhibition of the Florentine Society of Fine Arts in Montecatini.
That same year he was proposed by many Italian artists as a juror for the First Roman Quadriennale.
On November 26 he received in Parma the “Permanent Artistic Prize” for The Lost Way, praised for the strength of its modeling, simplicity of composition and emotional intensity.
Antwerp and 1931
In January 1931 he exhibited twenty-five works in the Italian Art exhibition at Zaal Oor Gallery in Antwerp.
Foreign critics emphasized the classical grace of his sculpture and his ability to renew Italian tradition with a modern sensitivity.
That summer he also served as juror at the annual Florentine exhibition in Montecatini.
He exhibited works dedicated to childhood such as Child with Orange and Crying Child, together with portraits including The Fisherman’s Mother and Waiting.
With the marble bust Dreams he received first prize: the “Great Medal of Their Majesties the King and Queen.”
By the early 1930s Alimondo Ciampi
was widely recognized as one of the leading figures
of twentieth-century Tuscan figurative sculpture.