Head of Mussolini

Giandante X (1900-1984)
1921, Bronze

Dante Pescò, a remarkable personality and artist from Milan, used the pseudonym Giandante X. He was an architect, painter, sculptor, writer, ceramist, poet, and scholar of music and dance. Hostile to the fascist regime, Giandante X created a clearly expressionist work, whose simple, stylised lines resulted in an enigmatic, abstract idealism. Not much is known about his life. He was a lonely and solitary child, probably from a bourgeois family, and embarked on a life as an itinerant artist at the age of sixteen, signing his works with the pseudonym Giandante, a modification of the term for 'eternal wanderer'. At the age of 20, he presented his works in various exhibitions and achieved great success; he exhibited at the first Monza Biennials and in the most important galleries in Milan, where he soon became very well known. He exhibited alongside the great artists of his time, such as Carlo Carrà, Bruno Munari, Giacomo Manzù and Mario Sironi. An anarchist, he actively participated in the Spanish Civil War and was later taken prisoner in France.