Fred Carassoartist • sculptorCarignano (Italië) 1899-1969 Amsterdam

Fred Carasso, born in Carignano in Northern Italy, fled the fascism of Mussolini in 1922 and settled in Amsterdam in 1933, after wandering through France and Belgium. In the years after the war, Carasso was known as an active member of the Nederlandse kring van Beeldhouwers (Dutch Circle of Sculptors), as creator of the Koopvaardij monument in Rotterdam and as professor at the Jan van Eyck Academy in Maastricht. Sculptors such as Medardo Rosso and Bourdelle influenced his style. In the introduction of international, modern sculpture in the Netherlands - Italian in particular - he played an important role as an organizer and publicist. Carasso was an erudite man with a broad interest in contemporary art and its sources of inspiration, such as ethnography.