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Calandra, Davide
(b Turin, 21 Oct 1856; d Turin, 8 Sept 1915). Italian sculptor. He studied at the Accademia Albertina di Belle Arti in Turin, where he was a pupil of Alfonso Balzico and Odoardo Tabacchi. In 1880 he participated for the first time in a public exhibition, held in the Parco del Valentino, Turin, with a plaster study representing Penelope’s Vigil. This was immediately well received by both the public and critics, and he continued to be highly regarded, although the ease of his success, due partly to his personal qualities, prevented him from reaching a full expressive development. His early works were largely limited to realistic plaster or terracotta studies with unconventional themes (e.g. Royal Tiger, exh. Munich, 1883; ex-Chiesa priv. col., Turin, see Micheli, p. 145). In the period that followed Calandra worked on rural subjects, for example the bronze Plough (1888; Rome, G.N.A. Mod.); some were historical and all were executed in a sketchy realist style. Calandra then adopted a more ambitious symbolism for large celebratory sculptures. He beat Leonardo Bistolfi in a competition for the execution of the monument to Prince Amedeo d’Aosta in Turin in 1892: the work was realized in 1902 in the Parco del Valentino. The monument to Giuseppe Zanardelli (1906–9) in Brescia was executed in a more monumental manner and with greater attention to its setting. It was built of marble and bronze with a classical scenic background. In 1907 Calandra worked with Edoardo Rubino on the monument to Gen. Bartolomeo Nitre in Avenida Alvear, Buenos Aires, and the following year he was commissioned to produce a gigantic bronze relief depicting the Apotheosis of the House of Savoy for the parliamentary chamber at Montecitorio in Rome. This was completed in 1912 and exhibited at the International Exhibition in Amsterdam. Calandra produced designs for coins and continued to produce portraits and funerary monuments, as well as works expressing his personal taste, for example the equestrian bronze Conqueror (1904; Turin, Gal. Civ. A. Mod.), which may be considered his masterpiece. In 1902, with Bistolfi, he was among the founders of the Turin review L’arte decorativa moderna, which conducted a vigorous battle for the affirmation of contemporary art.
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