Farpi Vignoli was born in Bologna in August 1907, from Callisto Vignoli, a carpenter, and Ersilia Tagliavini. He was the younger of three brothers.. It spends the infancy and the first adolescence in a house near the racecourse of the Arcoveggio. In 1919 he was admitted to the College Venturoli, where he studied painting, sculpture, architecture following sculptor Enrico Barberi's teachings. In this period a brotherly friendship was born with Paolo Manaresi. In the same period the friendship with the sculptorLuciano Minguzzi was consolidated, as he they continued in the Academy with the same teacher Ercole Drei, then busy in the realization of the marmoreal Images of Liberty and Victory for the Chartreuse in Bologna. Concluded then the Art Academy, in 1934 he begins in Bologna with a personal exposition. In the II Quadriennale in Rome, in 1935, The Sulky Driver was awarded the right to participate to the Olympiads in Berlin in 1936. During the following years: the Tennis player in 1936; the Shot of rope in 1937; the Jumper in 1938, this last suggestively suspended between sky and earth with an unusual equilibrium of oblique auctions. In 1936 he won the gold medal in the art competitions of the Olympic Games for his "Guidatore di sulky". Then Vignoli changes style and abandoned the sporting subject. In 1939, he introduced to the III Quadriennale, in Rome, the prelude of love opening a new period of creativeness more eclectic. In the same years he realized two gigantic bas-reliefs for façade of the Farmer's House in Bologna. In 1940 wins the façade of EUR, in Rome, and then two great trophies for the same complex. In 1941 the portrait of a friend: the poetAlfonso Gatto.
The resumption of the activity
In the immediatepostwar period, the new generations mature the rebellion against the preceding period. In this phase Vignoli devoted himself with passion to the watercolor painting, surprisingly innovating its chromatic and materic principles, reaching brightness and tones, more allied with the technique of the fresco, to the point that Virgilio Guidi defined the result: a true ransom toward the other nobler techniques. Vignoli returns to the sculpture from the 1950 with various works: Grave Frassetto, in the Chartreuse in Bologna; the portraits of American actors ; Grave Ennio Gnudi, always in the Chartreuse; the bronzy Monument to the Bersaglieris fallen in Russia ; his Mother and others. In 1957 he planned and directed the construction of the architectural complex for the Art Academy in Bologna, compreending the Theater for the School of Scenography, very appreciated by architect Gabor Acs. Then new errands of sculptures: The Stele to the cripples of war bronze, the Monument of St. Francis and the wolf, bronze; the Ciborium of the Cathedral of Casalecchio, natural bronze ; Mariarosa, the young teacher , marble ; the Horse, bronze great to the truth. In the last period of activity, among 1980 and 1990, the new sporting subjects, in bronze: Hang-gliding, Windsurfer, Giacomo Agostini, Björn Borg, Motocross.
Other artistic events
1936 First reward to the National Contest Curlandese of Painting.
1936 win the National Contest for the Desk to the High Artistic School in Bologna.
1936 named Academic Clementino.
1936 guest to the Sculpture Venetian Biennal.
1937 winner of the National Sculpture Contest Baruzzi.
1951 exposure of watercolors in the Gallery Bolzani, Milan.
1968 grave Cucchi.
Bibliographical signs
We can find first useful elements for reconstructing the artistic personality of Vignoli in the anthology of Eugenio Riccoboni of the 1942 Rome in the art. The sculpture in the modern age, and, subsequently, in the book of Francesco Sapori of the 1949 on his Modern Italian Sculpture .
