Wounds, Colours and Lovers in Clay Inside Leoncillo’s Sculpture in Milan
Vittoria Caprotti
Until 14 November 2026, Thaddaeus Ropac presents works by Leoncillo, including a previously unseen piece. From his earliest works to his final years, one constant runs through the evolution of his practice: the body.
Curated by Lorenzo Fiorucci, Alberto Salvadori and Azalea Seratoni, the exhibition spans 40 years of the Spoleto-born sculptor’s output. It moves from his purely figurative beginnings through his Cubist-influenced decompositions and the celebrated Tagli, up to his final works, from a period cut short by Leoncillo’s sudden death at the age of 52. The sculptures are shown alongside works on paper such as Ulivo, a drawing from 1933–34. Displayed in the first room, the tree’s split, chiasmic and bare trunk already seems to anticipate solutions that Taglio rosso and Taglio nero, from the mid-1960s and shown side by side in the next room, bring to full realisation. Also in the first room, Suonatori (1938–39) and Trofeo (1941) are imaginative triumphs of polychromy, their vivid colours outlining clearly recognisable bodies, products of the Roman and central Italian Baroque taste that surrounded Leoncillo.
Hanging in a small connecting room is the pivotal Colomba (1952–54). The space forces a close, almost disorienting view of the work, which was originally conceived for the outdoor setting of the Getsemani in Casale Corte Cerro. It is a pivotal work because, with it, Leoncillo reached a turning point. The commissioners had in fact rejected it, removing it shortly after it arrived on the grounds that it was too complicated. Seeing Centralinista and Colomba in sequence explains why, without the need for words: the colours liquefy, the planes no longer oppose each other but fuse, and the circular form brings a sense of completeness. As the sculptor wrote to Longhi, Colomba is a complete form, one that exists in itself.
