Popolana sulla riva del mare

Venanzo Crocetti shows a woman deep in thought on the shore, her eyes unseeing
and her lips shut tight to hold back some veiled sorrow. It is the artist’s melancholy
that sculpts childhood memories of when he played in the streets of the
small village in the Abruzzi region where he lived, drawing little works of art with black coal on the walls of white plaster inside and outside his home. That carefree life ended abruptly with a series of deaths that left him an orphan at the age of twelve and forced him to seek his fortune in Rome. He was able to embark on an artistic career in the capital, remaining completely outside the avantgarde developments of the time and focusing on genuine sculpture of craftsmanship and technique, emotion and memory. (Transl. by Paul Metcalfe per Scriptum, Roma)