Giovanni Riva (Turin 1890 – 1973)
Figura Femminile con bimbo [“Female figure with child”]
1930 ca
bronze
cm 151 x 60 x 54 (height x length x depth/width)

Giovanni Riva began his artistic training at the Institute of Fine Arts in Turin, where he graduated in 1908.

His first approach to art saw him work as a cabinetmaker for a company producing church furnishings where he specialised in wood sculpture.

His works were exhibited for the first time at the Promotrice delle Belle Arti in Turin in 1912. In the years that followed, he continued to take part in the Promotrice’s exhibitions as well as in all the Turin exhibitions promoted by the Amici dell’Arte, the Circolo Artistico, and the Piemonte Artistico e Culturale. In 1940 and 1942 he also took part in the Florence Triennale and the Venice Biennale.

Starting from the late 1920s, he worked with the Lenci company, for which he created several doll faces and some ceramic models.

A painter and a sculptor, he participated in, and won numerous national competitions for the creation of decorative sculptural elements in squares – such as the Angelica Fountain for Piazza Solferino, Turin, which was inaugurated in October 1930 – and gardens in Italy. Despite the artist’s strict classic training and sophisticated execution style, Riva’s sculptures convey an entirely personal message of peace and serenity, of an immediate reality imbued with poetry.

On a pictorial level, Riva mainly devoted himself to city views – especially Venice and Milan – but his works also include a number of portraits he painted for actors in the Turin film studios and for famous personalities such as Italy’s President Luigi Einaudi. He also left several drawings on paper, revealing his comfortable mastery of graphics and his versatility as an educated artist.