About the artist:

Greco is an Italian sculptor and draughtsman, mainly of female nudes and portrait busts. Born in Catania, Sicily. Because his family was poor, he helped to repair and copy ancient sculptures since he was very little. It was a good study for him to become a sculptor. At the age of thirteen entered the workshop of a stone mason, learning to carve crosses and figures for cemeteries; and also began making sculpture on his own account and studied briefly at the Palermo Academy 1934. He settled in Rome in 1943 and his first one-man exhibition was held in 1946 in Rome, which was well received by the public. Only 10 years later, he was awarded the Grand Prize of Sculpture at the 28th Venice Biennale with his "Bagnante", which made him one of the leading artists among the post-war ltalian sculptors. (This sculpture was placed at the corner of the former Shirakiya Department Store in Nihonbashi, Tokyo and it was the first sculpture made by a foreigner after the war in Japan.) His monumental works also include three new bronze doors for Orvieto Cathedral 1959-64 and a monument to Pope John XXIII for St Peter's in the Vatican 1965-6. Professor of sculpture at the Licevo Artistico, Rome, 1948-52, at the Carrara Academy 1952-5, the Naples Academy 1955-67 and from 1966 at the Academy in Rome. The artist passed away in 1995.