Lorenzo Quinn
Contemporary Italian artist Lorenzo Quinn (born 1966) is a leading figurative sculptor whose work is inspired by such masters as Michelangelo, Bernini and Rodin. Exhibited internationally, his monumental public art and smaller, more intimate pieces transmit his passion for eternal values and authentic emotions. He is best known for expressive recreations of human hands. ‘I wanted to sculpt what is considered the hardest and most technically challenging part of the human body’, he asserts. ‘The hand holds so much power – the power to love, to hate, to create, to destroy.’
Quinn studied at the American Academy of Fine Arts in New York, planning to be a Surrealist painter. However, aged 21 he decided that his future lay in sculpture, which could better accommodate his energy and originality.
Quinn’s creative ideas spark quickly into life: ‘The inspiration comes within a millisecond’, he says, as he is driven to sculpt by observing life’s everyday energy. Yet a finished project takes months to realise, and it has to carry a clear meaning. Quinn usually conceives each work in writing, and the poetic text is ultimately displayed with the sculpture, as an integral part of the piece, not merely as an explanation.
Quinn’s work appears in many private collections throughout the world and has been exhibited internationally throughout the past two decades. Among his commissions is the Tree of Life, produced for the United Nations and issued by the organisation as a stamp in 1993. The following year the Vatican engaged him to sculpt a likeness of St Anthony for the Basilica del Santo in Padua, in commemoration of the 800th anniversary of the saint’s birth; the sculpture was blessed by the pope in St Peter’s Square, Rome, in front of a crowd of 35,000.
