Gina Lollobrigida, actress, painter, photographer, and sculptress.
Before she was a film star, Gina Lollobrigida was an art student. She studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome and, after a very successful film career, went back to her artistic beginnings—sculpture. Inspired by Italian sculptor Giacomo Manzù (who did a sculptural portrait of her in her 20s), she said ‘it was from him that I learned the humility and passion indispensable in sculpture’.In 1990, at a foundry in Pietrasanta, she began to build and carve clay models of herself, primarily portraits of the characters she played in films. Life size, the bronzes are given patinas and, often, gold leaf. Her work has been exhibited in museums around the world, and in January 2007, the Republic of San Marino issued a 1-euro stamp with a picture of her Esmeralda (and Gina herself in the background). In the mid-1990s, as a Cavaliere della Repubblica, she was made an honorary member of the Florence Academy of Fine Arts, only the third woman to be so recognized at that time.
