Anyone who has strolled through London’s Covent Garden will have noticed the bronze cast located just off Bow Street in Broad Court, opposite the Opera House. The life-size statue of a dancer sitting on a high stool, wearing a leotard and toe shoes, has inspired the name of the Italian restaurant just steps away: La Ballerina.
The tranquility, grace and introspection of this woman as she adjusts one of her shoes contrast with her manifest strength; latent energy and the movement of the dance course through her even though the act she is performing is a low-key one. She has great presence, her stillness and concentration the more noticeable because of the buzz of the crowded pedestrian zone that surrounds her.
Sculptor Enzo Plazzotta
The artist who created the figure is Enzo Mario Plazzotta, who moved to London in his twenties, where he made a career for himself and where he died, aged 60, in 1981.
Plazzotta’s is far from a household name; even many connoisseurs are unfamiliar with his art. So it is surprising to discover just how integrated his work is in prestigious collections such as the Vatican’s; how many famous people (dancer Margot Fonteyn, actor Peter Ustinov) posed for him; and the top-tier reputation of some of the galleries he showed at: Acquavella in New York, Grosvenor and Marjorie Parr in London – more about the latter further on. There were equally classy public commissions, e.g. for Stanford University in California.
As the skeleton of a biography emerges from Internet research, bits and pieces slot into place. Born in Mestre (Venice) in 1921, Plazzotta grew up near Lago Maggiore and trained at the Brera art academy in Milan. The ability he developed to convey movement not only in ballet (as the quite astonishing ‘’Jeté’’ featuring a leaping dancer on Millbank, Westminster, in London testifies), but in horses had race horse owners commissioning him to portray their animals.
In 1960, he married Gillian Antonia Hamilton Beamish. The couple had two children, Carol and Mark. Carol is the author of a catalogue raisonné of her father's sculpture and a curator at the National Gallery in London. Her thoughtful biography of Plazzotta is to be found on the website of Jonathan Poole, Compton Cassey Gallery, in Cheltenham, Gloucestersire.
Remembering Enzo Plazzotta
Other sources flesh out the details. On her website, artist Penelope Wright writes that her ‘’first job was as an office junior at a small art agency in the King's Road, where boss Enzo Plazzotta (who later became a famous sculptor) trained me as a lettering artist.’’
British sculptor John Robinson, who died in 2007, had this to say about Plazzotta after he had given up his day job: ‘’I went to visit Enzo … I entered a real art studio. Northern light, stands, tool benches, even a little changing room for models! … All around me were beautiful wax figures that he was working on. At this time Enzo was specializing in ballet dancers, and female nudes.
Later he went on to produce some stunning larger-than-life male figures. Enzo … lent me his studio in Pietrasanta [Tuscany; Plazzotta had this studio from 1967 on] and taught me to model in wax. … Unfortunately the hard war that Enzo fought in the Italian Guerilla forces in the Apennines, being twice captured by the Nazis, and twice jumping from speeding trains to escape deportation to Germany, took its toll on his body. I sadly miss his friendship.’’
Other Plazzotta Sculpture Around London
Christopher Long, writing in London Portrait Magazine in the 1980s, tells the story of the installation on Belgrave Square of a ’’... massive, 9-ft-high statue of Leonardo's 'Vitruvian Man' ... opposite the Italian [Cultural Institute]. The statue, started by … sculptor Enzo Plazzotta, was completed by one of his studio assistants after Plazzotta died 18 months ago.
Cast in bronze, the statue is one of the most ambitious projects by Plazzotta who achieved considerable fame in this country after leaving Italy at the end of the war. ... Westminster City Council has approved the idea and with the opening recently of a permanent exhibition of Plazzotta's work in his old studio in Cathcart Road, Chelsea, it seems that Plazzotta's name will not be forgotten in London.’’ Long also published a worthwhile article on his website (christopherlong.co.uk) about the inception of a horse (foal) sculpture by Plazzotta. The Cathcart Road studio is no longer open; to see work by Plazzotta today, consult plazzotta.co.uk.
The Londonist, in ‘’Stalking Enzo Plazzotta’’, conducts a kind of virtual walking tour of London commenting on four bronzes by Plazzota, including the Covent Garden dancer and Vitruvian man.
Plazzotta Work On Exhibit And Coming Up For Auction
Until October 18, 2009, work by Plazzotta can be seen in a group show entitled ‘’Marjorie Parr's Artists’’ at Gallery 118, 118 Westbourne Grove, W11 2RR, (daily 11-5, Tel 020 7792 1808). Parr was a well-known art dealer who died in 2007. According to gallery118.blogspot.com, which features a visual of a bronze horse by Plazzotta: ‘’From 1967, the Chelsea-based neo-classical sculptor Enzo Plazzotta was a regular. Plazzotta's dancers and animated figures made him gallery breadwinner.’’
A forthcoming sale in November 2009 at auction house Bonhams in Knightsbridge includes Plazzotta’s ‘’Lady with a Smile’’, an elegant, 65 in.-high bronze cast of a standing woman draped in a mantle. Her only movement is her smile, and yet, as with the seated dancer, that latent sense of energy and action is powerfully there. The estimate is £7,000-10,000 (US $11,085-$15,836).
Meanwhile, as signaled by a London blogger, the Covent Garden ballerina is also a source of news: in July 2009, she was the subject of a ‘’guerilla knitting’’ action when an ankle warmer was placed on one of her legs.
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