All posts tagged: Antonio Casadei

Hong Kong’s Forgotten Masters at Ping Pong Gintonería

Published by Artomity Magazine

Antonio Casadei, Brian Brake, Cheung Yee, Douglas Bland, Arthur Hacker, King of Kowloon (Tsang Tsou Choi), Luis Chan, Antonio Mak Hin-yeung, Yau Leung / Oct 13, 2023 – Jan 28, 2024 / Ping Pong Gintonería 129 Second StreetL/G Nam Cheong House Sai Ying Pun, Hong Kong +852 9035 6197 Tuesday – Sunday, 6pm – 10pm pingpong129art.com Hong Kong’s Forgotten Masters focuses on the critical contributions of departed artists who had a significant influence on Hong Kong’s art scene from the 1960s to 90s, featuring an enriching collection of over 20 paintings and sculptures. Additionally, it will provide a thoughtful compilation of archival material, casting a retrospective lens on an era of Hong Kong’s art history that was more subdued, in contrast to the vibrant, bustling scene of the present day. Amid Hong Kong’s once dormant art ecology, these largely overlooked artists thrived in a time of minimal cultural infrastructure and scarce patronage. Their struggle took place in a markedly different Hong Kong, devoid of the rich private and public support we see for artists today. Their work bears testament to their resilience in …

Antonio Casadei

Published by Artomity Magazine

By Fionnuala McHugh In March 1968, the United States Patent Office received an application filed by one Antonio Casadei of York Road, Kowloon Tong. It was a design for an inflatable sled that could transport goods across ice and snow.  Cover 1966 Hong Kong Report.Courtesy of Hong Kong Design Institute. The subtropical address wasn’t the only unexpected aspect; Casadei, the hopeful inventor, was an artist in Hong Kong. His work could be seen in hotels and malls, and was already such a public attraction in Statue Square that the British colonial government had put it on the cover of its 1966 annual report.  The sled application was granted in 1970 but expired in 1987. By then, Casadei was living in Spain. After 20 years’ residence, he’d left Hong Kong in 1983, the year he turned 60. When he gave a final interview to the South China Morning Post, the headline read: ‘The artist who’s left his mark on Hongkong’. “In Hongkong, evidence of his talent lies virtually wherever one looks,” wrote the interviewer. “Almost every …

Antonio Casadei at Ping Pong Gintonería

Published by Artomity Magazine

Antonio Casadei & Hong Kong’s first public art commissionsExhibition and TalksMar 18 – Jul 10, 2023 Ping Pong Gintonería 129 Second StreetL/G Nam Cheong House Sai Ying Pun, Hong Kong +852 9035 6197 Tuesday – Sunday, 6pm – 10pm @PINGPONG129 The exhibition shows a selection of work completed by the artist in Hong Kong and includes a photo-essay by Hong Kong photographer William Furniss about Casadei’s public art installations in Statue Square and Mei Foo Sun Chuen.  Antonio Casadei (1923-2014) was born in Forli, Italy and had a long career as a renowned painter, ceramist, photographer and cinematographer, and as a professor at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Florence. After studying ceramics in 1948, he built a reputation for large ceramic and sculptural installations for residential and commercial projects in Italy during the 1950s.  Arriving in Hong Kong in 1962, coinciding with Hong Kong’s post-war building boom, he set up a ceramic studio in the New Territories, holding regular exhibitions of his paintings, drawings, sculptures and ceramic works during the 1960s and 70s. He was commissioned to design …

Octavia Fox

Published by Artomity Magazine

Food historian Octavia Fox talks about three of her favourite pieces in her collection. Antonio Casadei was an Italian artist working in Hong Kong during the 60s and 70s. His name is now little known but you would have walked past his work on numerous occasions: the ceramic screens in Statue Square are his, as are the back-lit glass wall in the lobby of the St George’s Building and the public sculptures in Mei Foo Sun Chuen. I think he was a great ceramicist and he must have had a substantial kiln somewhere in Hong Kong to produce works like the chunky bas reliefs which once graced the lobbies of the Prince’s Building. I have two of his paintings, which my father bought when Casadei was selling art door to door – most probably on his arrival in 1962. These paintings must have been produced in Italy before his arrival but they are, for me, very much a part of that era in Hong Kong. Eizō Katō was a Japanese landscape artist who worked in both Hong Kong and Japan. …