Silpa Bhirasri

Biography

The first monument Feroci made for Bangkok stands at a bridge opened in 1932: a bronze Rama I, founder of the ruling Chakri dynasty. The statue was modelled in Siam and cast in Florence, at the Marinelli foundry, and for that he made his first trip home since moving, in 1931.

He was born on 15 September 1892 in Florence. He studied at the Institute of Art of Santa Croce and then at the Academy of Fine Arts, where he later taught (by some accounts, from 1914 to 1923). He also worked in a medal-making workshop. The chief work of his Italian years was the bronze war memorial at Portoferraio on the island of Elba, unveiled in November 1922: five figures press upward, with a winged Victory above them.

Work in Florence did not pay enough. The Siamese Department of Fine Arts was looking for a sculptor and modeller; Feroci won the competition, and at the end of 1923 he sailed from Genoa. In Siam he is recorded from January 1924 (the sources give both 1923 and 1924). The contract paid 800 baht a month. The reception was cold at first: his request for a studio with overhead light was thought arrogant. Prince Naris, himself an artist, changed that. He commissioned a bust of himself, was pleased with it and secured a proper workshop for the sculptor. Feroci went on to model King Rama VI.

From 1926 he gave free classes for aspiring painters and sculptors, and some of the students were taken on by the department as assistants. The authorities asked him to set up a real school, but the plan dragged. After the coup of 1932 the department passed to the Ministry of Education, and the Silpakorn school did open after all; Feroci, modelling it on his Florentine academy, became its director. The first intake was seven students.

In 1942 the school changed its name, and in 1943, by government decision, it became Silpakorn University. Feroci headed the faculty of painting and sculpture. Faculties of architecture, archaeology and decorative arts were added later. He wrote textbooks: “Theory of Colour” (1943), “Theory of Composition” (1944) and “An Aid to Arts and English-Siamese Glossary” (1942–1944). What he taught, to my mind, came down to one thing: do not copy, find your own way. At the same time he studied Buddhist philosophy and classical Thai art, and in 1948 he organised an exhibition of Thai art at the Thai embassy in London, the first in the West. In 1949, on his initiative, the first national art exhibition and competition was held in Bangkok; Silpakorn still stages it.

When Italy capitulated in the autumn of 1943, Italians living in Thailand came under the supervision of the Japanese army. In January 1944 Feroci took Thai citizenship, and the name Silpa Bhirasri was chosen for him by Anuman Rajadhon, rector of Silpakorn. His students had already been calling him “Acharn Si” and “Professor C”, after the first letter of his name.

Among his other works are the Victory Monument (1942), the Democracy Monument (1939), the statue of King Taksin in Bangkok, the Thao Suranari monument in Nakhon Ratchasima (1934), the monument to Rama VI in Lumphini Park (1942) and the monument to King Naresuan. The standing Buddha at Phutthamonthon, near Nakhon Pathom, was erected in 1976, after his death.

Postwar inflation hit him hard. In 1949 he went to Italy and stayed nine months, working in a medal-making workshop until the department agreed to raise his salary. In December he returned to Bangkok alone: his family stayed in Florence. Until the end of his life he went on teaching, sculpting and writing about Thai art.

Silpa Bhirasri died on 14 May 1962 in Bangkok, at Siriraj Hospital. King Bhumibol took the funeral rites under his patronage; the cremation was held on 17 January 1963 at Wat Thepsirintharawas. His ashes were divided: part remained at Silpakorn, and part was buried in the Allori cemetery in Florence, in his parents’ tomb. Posthumously he was awarded the Order of the Crown of Siam, first class. Each year on 15 September Thailand marks Silpa Bhirasri Day, and students still bring flowers to his bronze statue in the university courtyard.