Medardo Rosso was born in Turin in 1858. While serving in the military he began to dabble in art. Around 1880 he took his first painting classes and produced his first bust sculpture, and beginning in 1882 he attended the Accademia di Brera in Milan. But he was expelled a year later because of improper behaviour. Nonetheless, he produced other sculptures and presented them in exhibitions, including the Salon des Indépendants in Paris and the Italian Exhibition at London’s Royal Albert Hall. In 1889 Rosso moved to Paris, showed five works at the World’s Fair, and began his most productive phase. In 1893 he met Rodin, and the two exchanged sculptures. Numerous successful exhibitions followed. In 1904 Rosso was hailed as a master of Impressionist sculpture at Paris’s Salon d’Automne. In 1914 a selection of twenty works could be seen at the Venice Biennale. Rosso died during an operation in Milan in 1918.
