Antonio Ligabue

Antonio Ligabue was born in Switzerland in 1899 from an Italian unmarried mother. Few months later he was in the care of another family. His relationship with the stepmother was immediately complex because of his mental instability. At first he was admitted in a psychiatric hospital and then he was reported to the authorities who compelled Antonio to live in Italy.

In 1919 he was at Gualtieri (Emilia) where was born his father Bonfiglio Laccabue, whose surname Antonio refused changing it in Ligabue. In this period, during the breaks from the rural work, he started painting and sculpting expressing his psychological malaise. In 1828 he met the sculptor and painter Marino Mazzacurati who supported Antonio both economically and humanely.

His favourite subjects are animals which represented his unconscious and his feelings. Because of many crisis and self-destruction acts he was confined to the mental hospital of San Lazzaro, in Reggio Emilia, where he was treated in 1937, in 1940 and in 1945.

His paintings were more and more three-dimensional, rich in colours and composition and expressive. When he was alive he was taunted and looked with suspect but also well-liked and appreciated by people who understood how to approach to him, like Sergio Negri. Antonio Ligabue died in 1965 because of a cerebral and physical paralysis.