From critical misfortune to Museum: the case study of Claudia Formica (1903-1987) by Chiara Lanzi

With her ‘male’ haircut, Claudia Formica appears proud and beautiful in the photographs and self-portraits of her youth. Born in a little Italian country town, we do not know how or why she decided to abandon her studies to become an elementary school teacher in order to go to the great city of Turin to train as a sculptor. Here her career developed ranging from little ceramics sculptures for private use to portraits and monumental sculpture for public spaces. She always lived alone and was totally dedicated to her work: even in the early 1980s – when she was an eighty-year-old – she continued to work hard in her little studio in Turin, packed full of plaster casts. Now these plaster casts and her studio’s materials are housed in a dedicated museum in Nizza Monferrato, the town of her birth.

Chiara Lanzi was born in Turin to a family of musicians, she completed classical studies and graduated in Art History, then obtained a PhD from the University of Genoa. She first worked in Turin, at the Sabauda Gallery and the scientific museums of the University. She was director of the Giulio Monteverde plaster cast Gallery in Bistagno from 2011 to 2021. Now she lives in Liguria and collaborates with the MIC (Ministry of Cultural Heritage) in Genoa, while continuing her research on nineteenth-twentieth century sculpture. She is also completing the construction of the Edoardo Rubino (1871-1954) and Claudia Formica (1903-1987) plaster cast Galleries which, together with the Giulio Monteverde Gallery, will constitute a museum centre in lower Piedmont.