Duron, Nieri & Bacci Chalkware

  • 4 June 1920: born in Sardinia, Italy. Full name appears in one source as Giovanni “Gino” Luigi Manca.
  • Trained as a sculptor at the Academy in Milan.
  • 1955: moved to Norway specifically for an artistic commission tied to King Haakon VII of Norway’s 50th jubilee on the throne. Haakon VII became king in 1905, so this date is independently checkable and consistent.
  • 1965: moved to Sweden, settled in Odeshog.
  • 1966: moved to Norrkoping.
  • 1965 onward: commercial breakthrough in Sweden with black plaster figures — busts, wall faces, and full figurines of Black women and men. Described as “very common in Swedish homes during the 1960s.”
  • Later Swedish years: shifted into garden art. He made moulds for concrete garden sculptures and SOLD THE MOULDS to garden art dealers — he did not cast the concrete pieces himself. Important distinction: a “Gino Manca” signed concrete garden sculpture was very likely cast by a third party from his mould, not made by him directly.
  • Also produced tomtar (Swedish Christmas gnomes) and troll figures. The gnomes were made on commission for the Heissner factory in Lauterbach, Germany — a real, identifiable German garden-ornament manufacturer, worth searching directly for a contract/catalogue trail.
  • A permanent public exhibition of his troll sculptures exists at a park called Ladbilslandet, in Lottorp on the island of Oland, Sweden — a real, visitable primary site if you ever wanted photos or on-the-ground verification.
  • Died 7 January 1985, Norrkoping, Sweden.

MATERIALS AND RANGE
I have been able to see that he works broader than “chalkware designer” implies — auction records show him working across:

  • Plaster/gypsum (chalkware) — busts, wall faces, full figurines, predominantly the Black-figure subjects that made him commercially known
  • Bronzed stone mass / “bronserad stenmassa” — e.g. a documented 1969 piece, ~93cm, after “the little mermaid” (a Hans Christian Andersen-
    referencing subject, interesting since he was working in Scandinavia)
  • Ceramic on wood base
  • Painted concrete — garden sculptures and fountains, often dated pieces from the late 1960s/1900s second half
  • Teak bases were a common pairing with his plaster busts — consistent with the Scandinavian mid-century design context he was working within, not just an incidental choice

    MARKET / REPUTATION CONTEXT

    He has real auction-house presence today (Bukowskis, Auctionet — both legitimate Nordic auction houses, not just flea-market/marketplace listings), which positions him as a recognised mid-century decorative sculptor rather than purely a “kitsch chalkware” figure. The cheap mass-produced plaster busts are the most commonly collected layer of a wider, more legitimate sculptural career.

    The Gino Manca collection is collated here for the pieces I have managed to capture images of.

There is also some decent links to other sites I have found:

A massive thank you to Nerferoth Drake for getting in touch to pass on the information or I would never have known about this sculptor.

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