Heritage Malta is organising an exhibition to commemorate 100 years from the death of Carlo Darmanin, Malta’s most important paper mache statue maker.

The exhibition will be held at the Our Lady Pilar Church in Valletta on Saturday night during this year’s edition of Notte Bianca. On display will be works by the artist including a statue of St Joseph from the old parish at Santa Venera as well as two kneeling angels from the same church. There will also be four angels from the San Leonardo Band Club of Kirkop.

Carlo Darmanin was born in Senglea in 1825 in an artistic family. He was trained in art by his father. He specialized in creating paper mache statues and during his career produced several statues including Christ the Saviour which is found in Lija Church, Saint Caetan in Hamrun St Leonard in Kirkop parish and the statue of St Julians in the parish church of the village dedicated to this saint and several Good Friday statues.

Heritage Malta is also organising lectures by Renzo Gauci a Maltese paper mache statue maker who will be talking about the art of paper mache and another by Victor Caruana who has carried out in-depth research about paper mache and artists who use this technique. The lectures will be held at 7.30pm, 8.30pm and 9.30pm. The exhibition opens at 6.30pm.

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