In the words of Rosini di Santi, “art is the trace of time”. His artistic explorations have taken him to the depths of life. “I searched and searched in vain for the absolute straight line on every continent, every horizon and every corner of the planet. And one morning, sitting in my fisherman’s sh...
In the words of Rosini di Santi, “art is the trace of time”. His artistic explorations have taken him to the depths of life. “I searched and searched in vain for the absolute straight line on every continent, every horizon and every corner of the planet. And one morning, sitting in my fisherman’s shack, there it was! To my great astonishment, it was waved with life.” L’Âme de Fond is an allegorical figure celebrating the people of the sea. Installed near the water’s edge in 2000, the sculpture in white Carrara marble is reminiscent of figures from antiquity. The work was commissioned by Mr Jean-Claude Tunon, and was presented as a gift to the Principality to mark the 700th anniversary of the Grimaldi dynasty in 1997.
Nicola Rosini di Santi was born in 1959 in a small village in southern Italy. His father moved to Paris, and Nicola grew up in a district bustling with people and art. The day he discovered the studio of the famous Argentine sculptor Hugo Demarco proved to be a turning point in his life. He was then barely ten years old. A graduate of the École Boulle in Paris, he went on to work at various art studios and also at the Rosini Art Foundry, run by his brother. He worked alongside many other artists and began experimenting with bronze. In 1985, he held his first exhibition. More would follow in Paris, at the Salon d’Automne, the Salon de Mai, and at the Grand Palais, to which he was admitted as a member. Nicola Rosini di Santi lives and works in a small Provençal village with its intoxicating light, where he gives free rein to his passion for materials as varied as slate, bronze, iron, or glass. The artist is highly prolific and exhibited regularly in Monaco between 1998 and 2016.
