Costantino Nivola: The Sardinian Artist Of The 20th Century 0 Comments

by Daniela Toti

Among the Italian artists who managed to build a cultural bridge between Europe and the United States during the twentieth century, one figure stands out for originality and vision: Costantino Nivola. 

A sculptor, graphic designer and painter, Nivola was born in Orani, in the heart of Barbagia,  in 1911 and became one of the most interesting protagonists of the dialogue between art, architecture and design in the twentieth century.

From rural Sardinia to artistic training

Nivola was born into a modest family: his father was a mason, and it was precisely by observing the manual work of the building site that the young Costantino developed his first relationship with materials and with the construction of forms.

He later moved to Sassari, where he became an apprentice in the workshop of the painter Mario Delitala. Later he obtained a scholarship to attend the ISIA di Monza, one of the most important Italian schools of applied arts.

The encounter with Adriano Olivetti

Nivola’s talent was soon noticed by Adriano Olivetti, who invited him to work in Milan in the advertising department of his company. For Olivetti, visual communication was an integral part of industrial culture: graphics, architecture and design had to contribute to building a new idea of modern society.

Exile and the discovery of America

In 1938, with the introduction of the Fascist racial laws, Nivola, an anarchist and anti-fascist, and married to Ruth Guggenheim, who was Jewish, decided to leave Italy.

In the United States Nivola finally found the space to develop his artistic identity. Here he invented the sand-casting technique, a sculptural method that consists of pouring plaster or cement onto a moulded sand matrix. This technique allowed him to create bas-reliefs and large sculptures with a strong material presence.

Sardinia and the DDT campaign

During the 1940s and 1950s, despite his international career, the artist returned to Sardinia where he produced a series of illustrations dedicated to the campaign to eradicate malaria on the island.

This was part of a vast public health project, supported by the World Bank, which made extensive use of DDT to eliminate the Anopheles mosquito responsible for spreading malaria, locally known as Sa Malarika.

While the official narrative celebrated the triumph of modern science, Nivola’s drawings focused on the everyday life of the people: shepherds, markets, rural homes and workers engaged in the disinfestation campaign.

More than a simple technical record, Nivola’s work becomes a true anthropological reportage, documenting the transition of Sardinia from an archaic world to a modernity imposed from outside.

In 1966 he created Piazza Sebastiano Satta, one of the most important examples in Italy of the integration between art and urban space.

His final project, the building of the Regional Council in Cagliari in 1987, remained unfinished after his death in 1988.

The works of maturity

Over the course of his career Nivola developed an increasingly personal style.

Among the most famous works of his mature period are the Mediterranean Mothers and the Widows, semi-abstract female sculptures in marble and bronze, characterized by great formal elegance but also by a subtle sense of unease.

These figures evoke the memory of archaic Sardinia, made of rituals, silence and essential landscapes.

Today the Museo Nivola preserves the most important European collection dedicated to the artist, who succeeded in bringing Sardinia into the international dialogue of contemporary art.

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If during your stay at the Gabbiano Azzurro Hotel & Suites you wish to discover Sardinia through art as well, a visit to Orani and the Nivola Museum can become a fascinating journey through creativity, history and landscape.