Angelo MEANI, dated 1953, very rare set of 3 Outsider Art masks

Angelo MEANI 1906-1977,
very rare set of 3 Outsider Art masks, in freehand painted terracotta and dated 1953, artist's ceramic.

MEANI often created sculptures based on broken dishes and everyday objects, but finding a terracotta shaped with his hands and painted in oil after firing is very complicated.
His works are rare on the art market, a museum in LAUSANNE devotes a permanent exhibition to him and in 2016 at Artcurial, one of his sculptures, also made in painted terracotta, Janus reached 11,000 dollars with a hammer.

These works are in superb condition, no alteration of the colors of the paint, the Klein blue of the eyes is particularly striking and the yellows and reds striking. Very nice dimensions for these rare collector's items.

Height for the tallest: 46cm,
Width: 20.5cm and
Thickness: 13.5cm.

Biography Angelo Meani was born in Milan, Italy, where his parents have a marble workshop. He was introduced to the profession very quickly: he cut marble and modeled small earthen statues.
Later, he apprenticed as a chaser in a foundry and obtained a sculptor's diploma. Angelo Meani then shapes cemetery bas-reliefs and restores sculptures from the Duomo of Milan. But he feels cramped in the academic world.
He then begins to collect broken dishes, as well as all kinds of everyday objects that he assembles, creating funny masks.
He subsequently left the family business, before fleeing to Switzerland in 1943 to escape mobilization during World War II. There, he was employed as a laborer and gardener, then led a marginal life in the surroundings of Lausanne.
From then on, he devoted himself exclusively to his creative activity, recovering batches of broken dishes that department stores made available to him to make colorful masks.