Carla Lavatelli

• Name — Carla Lavatelli • Born — 21 August 1928 • Birthplace — Rome, Italy • Died — 18 January 2006 • Place of death — Camaiore, Italy • Field — Sculpture, Stone Carving, Silk and Paper Installations, Jewelry

Carla Lavatelli was born in Rome, Italy, in 1928. She spent much of her childhood in different parts of Africa. She returned to Italy at the end of the World War II to study literature at Ca' Foscari University of Venice. In Venice she met and married an American man and moved to California. She subsequently divorced and returned to Italy, where she settled in Rome and began a practice of creating sculptural portraits. A self-taught artist, Lavatelli was commercially successful, securing several important commissions for notable sitters, including Grace Kelly, Princess of Monaco, and her three children in 1969. In 1981, she married former Italian Formula 1 racecar driver Roberto Vallone and relocated to Harris County in Texas. In the late 1960s and early 70s, Lavatelli participated in the “Officina Cidonio,” a non-profit organization in the Tuscan town of Pietrasanta for artists who sculpt in stone founded by Erminio Cidonio. Cidonio had previously invited prominent sculptors such as Henry Moore, Jacques Lipchitz and Jean Arp to have their work enlarged in the Henraux workshops in Querceta in the 1950s. In Pietrasanta, Lavatelli, the only female artist invited, worked alongside famed sculptor Isamu Noguchi and met with Moore, Lipschitz and Marino Marini. Upon Cidonio's death in 1971, Lavatelli purchased and restored a 16th-century olive mill in the nearby town of Camaiore, which became her home and studio for the next four decades.

During the 1960s and 1970s, Lavatelli worked primarily in the United States. In 1968–69, she exhibited her sculptural works, including her fountain “The Rainbow,” at the Palm Beach Galleries in Palm Beach, Florida. She also had a series of exhibitions of her work at the Selected Artists Gallery in New York in 1968 and 1970. In 1972 Alexander Iolas exhibited her entire studio in his gallery in Manhattan. In the mid-1970s, Lavatelli worked with the Gimpel & Weizenhoffer Gallery, where she showed her granite and marble pieces as well several floor sculptures. Between 1976 and 1996 she had a studio in SoHo at 140 Thompson Street. Many of the abstract works that Lavatelli produced with Cidonio at the Officina in Pietrasanta were exhibited in major museums in the early 1970s. In 1972, Lavatelli's sculptures were exhibited at the Hakone Open-Air Museum in Hakone, Japan, which subsequently acquired one of her works for its permanent collection. Two years later, six of Lavatelli's sculptures were exhibited at the Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C.

• "Portrait of Princess Grace of Monaco" (1969), Monaco, France • Illustration — Princess Grace posing for Carla Lavatelli - 1969 • "Sculptures to Wear" (1969), Minneapolis Institute of Art • "Stele for a Prayer" (1971), San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, CA • Illustration — Stele for a Prayer - San Francisco Museum of Modern Art - 1971 • "Untitled", Hakone Open-Air Sculpture Garden (1972), Japan • "Ginko Biloba" (1974), The Phillips Collection, Washington DC • Illustration — Ginko Biloba - Philips Collection, Washington, D.C. - 1974 • "Golden Pond" (1973), Botanical Garden, Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany • "1½"(1975), Stanford University, CA • "Little Roof Big Sun" (1979–80), Private Collection • "1½" (1985), Brown University, Providence RI • Illustration — '1 1/2' - Brown University - Providence, RI - 1985 • Paper Installation: "Happening for a Prayer" (1995), Pistoia, Italy • Illustration — 'Happening for a Prayer' - San Giovanni Batista Church - Pistoia, Italy 1991 • "La Place du Banc des Amis" (1995), Mougins, France • Illustration — Carla with her creation - Place du Banc des Amis - Mougins, France - 1995 • "The Wave" (2014), Collezione Gori, Fattoria di Celle, Pistoia, Italy • Illustration — The Wave - Gori Collection - Celle, Italy - 2014 • "Swirling Seagulls or Une Ronde de Mouettes" (2014) Mougins, France • Illustration — Ronde de Mouettes in Mougins 2014 - flying over the plain of Grasse with Castellaras in the background

• 1959 – Galleria Russo, Rome • 1960 – Sari Heller Gallery, Beverly Hills • 1964 – Sari Heller Gallery, Beverly Hills • 1965 – Palazzo Cerio, Capri, Italy • 1966 – Galleria Il Carpine, Rome • 1967 – Galleria degli Argenti, Milan • 1967 – Galleria La Vernice, Bari, Italy • 1969 – Palm Beach Galleries, Florida • 1969 – Herbert Kende Gallery, New York, • 1970 – Galerie Motte, Geneva, Switzerland • 1970 – Benjamin Gallery, Chicago • 1970 – Galerie Moos, Montreal • 1970 – Palm Springs Art Museum • 1971 – Sari Heller Gallery, Beverly Hills • 1972 – Alexander Iolas, New York • 1972 – Hakone Open Air Museum, Hakone, Japan • 1974 – The Philips Collection, Washington, D.C. • 1975 – Palm Beach Galleries, Florida • 1976 – Gimpel & Weizenhoffer, New York • 1995 – Centro per l'arte contemporanea Luigi Pecci and Fondazione Gori, Prato, Italy

Carla Lavatelli is recorded as sculptor and ceramicist.