A whole range of singular activities has brought into the limelight, at a national level, the Umberto Boccioni State Art School in Milan, situated at Piazzale Arduino, thanks to the large variety of projects designed to promote artistic activities, to the professional competence of the teaching staff and to the strong and significant industriousness of who is in charge of the management of a Liceo attended by so many students.
It should be mentioned that great part of these projects, which are the feather in the cap of the Liceo, had already been launched by the headmaster Italo Antico, eminent sculptor; but the current headmistress, Prof.ssa Maria Celeste, has not only pursued the same cultural policy, but has broadened its most significant niches, that is the areas providing for preparation of the senior students for admission to the Academy of Fine Arts or to the Italian Universities which best suit their inclinations. This secondary school offers broad and airy spaces, photography and engraving laboratories, a multimedia hall, an indoor stadium, the Boccioni exhibition salon, a sign writing laboratory, a very well-supplied library with historical archives, a conference hall, as well as an artistic heritage and cinema cataloguing course, and the other manifold activities which convey the variegated cultural word the students may gain access to. The Boccioni exhibition salon has housed a wonderful, absolutely unique, review dedicated to Sandro Angelini, set designer, talented artist with a keen personality, involved in the town-planning sector. He worked in Bergamo, where he used for his stage-designing work preliminary sketches, drawings, costumes, and various sketches and studies, especially during the Thirties and Forties. The exhibition salon has also housed an exhibition entitled “Small Size”, which has only recently been held. Fifty artists, but also fifty teachers in fields of learning such as Pictorial and Architectonic Disciplines from the three art liceos in Milan, contributed to the exhibition with small-size works. Some were well-known artists also on the art market, whereas some were still little known, but they all daily offer to the school their artistic commitment, their creativity, the drive which has always characterised their activity in painting, sculpturing or working on more actual projects. And since schools, including state schools, are going towards privatisation, the act of disclosing to the outside world the activity of those who within the school are in charge of handing down knowledge, as well as specific skills, offers to society and to other institutions a very shining example. Among the many works stood out those of Grillo, who produces icons of the year 2000, landscapes such epidermis by Esposito, with colour moving downwards and vice versa; the women figures by Fiorella Iori, the traces by Settembrini, the steel lines by the sculptor Italo Antico and also works by Canu, Battaglia, Guzzetti, Mazzotta and others. It should be stressed that often creativity is actually expressed at its best in “small-size” works. Nor should we forget the yearly appointment with the now very prestigious “Boccioni Prize”, which this year related to the theme “YES/The Wonders of Greys”, and is open to students attending all the art schools in the Milan Province. The event is sponsored by the Milan Municipal and Provincial Authorities and by the Lombardy Regional Authority. Finally, I wish to mention the 55 works produced for “A Symbol for Veronica Sacchi”, the young student who lost her life a few months ago in a road accident and whose family has decided to found an Association which, through this competition, is to select its “logo”; the works being produces will be exhibited over the next few days at the Fabbrica del Vapore in Milan and the winner will be entitled to a period of training with the Ratti Foundation in Como. Having reviewed a number of prestigious cultural events organised by the Boccioni State Art School in Milan, the reader will be able to acquire full knowledge of a great part of the work which, in conjunction with the official educational programme, is carried out at this Institute. (traduzione Interpres sas-Giussano)