Silvana Cenci, Italian Silvana Cenci Signed Mid Century Modern Steel Gold Explosion Sculpture

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Silvana Cenci, internationally renowned explosive sculptor, died October 1, 2000 at her home in Gray.

Ms. Cenci, who was born … Read more Silvana Cenci, internationally renowned explosive sculptor, died October 1, 2000 at her home in Gray.

Ms. Cenci, who was born in Florence, Italy, before World War II, married Stuart Church and moved to the U.S. permanently in 1959. She lived in Boston for many years, where she was a founder of the Brookline Art Center and a founding member of Summerthing. She exhibited widely throughout Europe and the U.S., and her work is in many museums and public and private collections.
After moving to the States, Ms. Cenci began working with new technologies from the aircraft industry, and with explosives. She moved to Northwood, NH, in the early 60s, and pursued and perfected her revolutionary experimentation with explosive sculpture in stainless steel. A native of Italy, she lived most of her life in America where she became internationally known, primarily for using dynamite to blast images into stainless steel and finishing some pieces with pure gold. The pieces created with dynamite were often utilized by architects. One piece titled “Wheels in Motion” hung in Boston’s South Station.

Education and Training

Accademia di Belle Arti, Florence, Italy
Academie de la Grande Chaumiere, Paris
Lewis and Clark College, Portland, Oregon


Selected Individual Exhibitions

Galleria Numero, Florence, Italy
Galleria San Carlo, Naples, Italy
Galleria d'Arte Totti, Milan, Italy
Galeria Beno, Zurich, Switzerland
Nova Gallery, Boston
Weeden Gallery, Boston
Capricorn Gallery, New York City
Roach-Hoffman Gallery, Naples, Florida
Bristol Art Museum, Bristol, Rhode Island, retrospective
Frank Tanzer Gallery, Boston
Symphony Hall, Boston
Musica Viva, Cambridge, Massachusetts
Los Llanos Gallery, Santa Fe, New Mexico
Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff


Selected Group Exhibitions

"Oregon Artists," Lincoln County Art Center, Lincoln, Oregon
"Exhibition of Painting and Sculpture," Henry Art Gallery, Seattle, Washington
"West Coast Sculptors," Portland Art Museum, Portland, Oregon
"Mostra Nazionale del Bianco e Nero," Museo Civico Castello Urasino, Catania, Italy
"New England Art Today," Northwestern University, Boston
"New England Sculptors Association," Boston City Hall, Boston
"Silvana Cenci and Calvin Libby," Bristol Art Museum, Bristol, Rhode Island
"Adele Seronde and Silvana Cenci," Weeden Gallery, Boston
"Contemporary Italian Art-Italian Heritage," Boston City Hall, Boston, catalog
"Explosion of Form, Color, Imagination: Works by Silvana Cenci


Selected Awards
First Honorable Mention, "Design in Transit," Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority Competition, Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, Massachusetts
Research in Creative Art Grant, Blanche E. Colman Foundation, Boston, Massachusetts
Statue of Victory, World Culture Prize for Letters, Arts and Sciences, Centro Studi e Ricerche delle Nazioni, Salsomaggiore Terme, Italy
Harvard-pedigreed architect Harlow Carpenter built the Bundy in 1962. The venue's first decade was lively with exhibitions that featured a large cast of artists, including Dino Basaldella, Judith Brown, Silvana Cenci, Xavier Corbero, Ivanhoe Fortier and Louise Nevelson. In a catalog for one such show, in 1963, Carpenter wrote that he envisioned the Bundy Center for the Arts (as he called it then) as "a country museum where space would be an inherent commodity and painting and sculpture could be viewed leisurely against a Vermont landscape."
Silvana Cenci created unique sculptures and wall-reliefs by blasting metal with high-powered explosives. She stated: "I feel a direct involvement with the material--the explosion is immediate, and yet controlled, violent and exact." Cenci studied art at the Accademia di Belle (Florence, Italy, 1946), the Academie de la Grande Chaumiere (Paris, France, 1949) and Lewis and Clark College (Portland, Oregon, 1951). She exhibited widely, including at the Bristol Art Museum (Bristol, Rhode Island), the Symphony Hall (Boston, MA) and Northern Arizona University (Flagstaff, AZ). Her work is included in several public collections, including the collections of the Colonnade Hotel (Boston, MA), the Galleria d'Arte Moderna (Florence, Italy), the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (Boston, MA), and the Milhouse-Bundy Performing and Fine Arts Center (Waitsfield, VT). In 1974, Cenci received a Research in Creative Art Grant from the Blanche Colman Foundation (Boston, MA). Cenci lived in Sedona Arzona in the 1970s and early 1980s. This sculpture was formed by explosion and a liquid gold wash was added. The material has a unique ability to gather light and interesting dimensions are formed as the light bounces around it. Structurally the sculpture is very strong. The vast majority of her work is either in museums or private collections. Regarding her use of dynamite, nitroglycerin and TNT explosives in making art, Cenci said: "It is simultaneously conception and birth, and if I am not pleased with the result, well then, I do not have to reject months of labor.".
Selected Bibliography
Brolin, Brent C. and Jean Richards. Sourcebook of Architectural Ornament: Designers, Craftsmen, Manufacturers and Distributors of Custom and Ready-Made Exterior Ornament. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1982.

Cooper, Ed. "Cenci Sculptures at Nova." The Christian Science Monitor (Tuesday, November 21, 1961) p. 7, illus.

Hughes, John A. "Explosion in Northwood." New Hampshire Profiles vol. 13 no. 6 (June 1964) pp. 38-39, 56, illus. See less