Andrew Lambirth: Emilio Greco's early work is undeniably his best

Emilio Greco (1913–95) is considered to be one of Italy’s most important modern sculptors, and certainly he was a successful one, enjoying considerable popularity and renown with his deliberately mannered re-interpretations of classical subjects. A figurative sculptor, Greco went in for elongated limbs and awkward yet dynamic poses that often have a surprising elegance and no little wit. His most celebrated work is ‘Monument to Pinocchio’ (1953) in the Tuscan hill town of Collodi, and one of the highlights of this new exhibition at the Estorick — no doubt intended to revive Greco’s reputation (on the wane since the 1970s) — is a bronze study for it.

Emilio Greco: Study for the Monument to Pinnochio, 1953 and Dress the Nude (fragment from the Doors of Orvieto Cathedral), 1962

For this centenary exhibition, the two downstairs galleries have been filled with some 40 works by Greco, mostly sculptures and drawings of women. The early work is undeniably the best: a fact made inescapable by the merest glance at the heavily cross-hatched ink drawings from later years. There are a number of these around the walls, and although their style is by turns robust and polished, the subjects are sentimental and verging on soft porn. Greco had found a profitable formula and he stuck to it. But in the earlier part of his career he looked more to Etruscan, Greek and Roman art and made some of the most memorable and rewarding of his images, evidently able, with these past examples before him, to be more inventive with human form. Look, for instance, at ‘Wrestler’ (1947) and ‘Head of a Man’ (1948) in the first gallery, in which the modelling of form is compact, potent and full of character, despite the mannerist rounding of the head, which only adds to the effect. Also in this room are a couple of strong female characterisations from the next decade, ‘Head of a Woman’ (1950) and ‘Bust of a Woman’ (1952), with a rather fine drawing of the latter sculpture hanging nearby.