John Buffa - The ship burning

Artist: Giovanni Buffa (1871-1954)

Born in Casale Monferrato in 1871, Giovanni Buffa studied with Raffaele Casnedi and Lodovico Pogliaghi at the Brera Academy of Fine Arts and was influenced by the English Arts and Crafts movement. He held his first exhibition in Milan in 1894, and then presented his works in Turin and Venice, as well as in Paris, Buenos Aires, Barcelona and Munich. He taught decoration at the Scuola d'Arte Professionale della Società Umanitaria and at the Scuola Superiore d'Arte Industriale del Castello Sforzesco in Milan. He participated in the Brera National Art Exhibition in 1915 and 1916. From 1899 he devoted himself to the production of artistic stained glass. In 1901, together with Giovanni Beltrami, Innocente Cantinotti and Guido Zuccaro, he created the firm Beltrami & C. Vetrate Artistiche, specialising in the production of stained glass windows with sacred and profane themes, which had enormous success and was an almost absolute protagonist of the Italian Liberty style in this sector; the stained glass cartoons designed by Buffa were exhibited and awarded in Italy and abroad. He created the cartoon for the stained glass window Le donne, i cavalier… of the V Mostra di Venezia in 1903. He created the sketches, drew the cartoons and produced stained glass windows for the casino of San Pellegrino Terme (1906), those of the church of the Santissimo Redentore in Milan, the one representing Sant'Agostino preserved in the Pinacoteca Ambrosiana in 1908, those of the Duomo of Milan illustrating the life of San Carlo Borromeo (the distribution of the loaves; the Vatican nights; the entry of San Carlo into Milan) in 1910-1911, and the one for the Church of the Missionary Daughters of Sant'Anna in Rome in 1925-1926. He collaborated in the creation of the mosaic representing Virgil in the apse of the exedra room in the Pinacoteca Ambrosiana. As a sculptor, designer and etcher he created numerous works illustrating art books. Giovanni Buffa died in Milan in 1954.