Biography
Ulrico 'Montefiore' Schettini (b. Cosenza, Marche, Italy 1932) studied art at Pesaro, Paris and Rome and then settled in England in 1958. During the 1960s and early 1970s he lectured at Hull College of Arts and Crafts, Carlisle College of Art and Design, Hornsea College of Art, the City Literary Institute and King's College London. He worked in New York in 1964 and from 1966-71 lectured annually in America under the auspices of the Association of American Colleges. During this period he exhibited widely in London Galleries such as Drian Gallery and in the provinces. He had his first retrospective exhibition at the Municipal Art Gallery, Hull in 1968 which attracted international attention. About this time he took 'Montefiore' as his professional name. A large exhibition of his work was held at the Cafe Royal, London in 1972 and a still more important exhibition at the Palazzo della Permanente, Milan in 1974. Montefiore moved back to Italy in the 1970s and continues to exhibit there. His work, which from the 1950s was fiercely modernist and abstract, underwent a dramatic shift in the 1980s. He turned to a wider variety of media - he is currently working on stained glass, metals and ceramics as well as painting - and shifted from abstract to representational art. The main motive behind this was religious and he now mainly concentrates on large-scale commissions for Catholic institutions in Peru, Spain and Italy. He currently teaches at the Academy of Fine Arts at Brera, Milan.
