(1892 – 1962)
Corrado Feroci was born in Florence in 1892. In 1911 he graduated as a sculptor at the Professional School of Industrial Decorative Arts (now Liceo Artistico di Porta Romana), and soon emerged as a medalist (he had trained in the Mario Nelli factory) and as a sculptor he created the monument to the fallen of Elba inaugurated in Portoferraio in 1922. In January 1924 he emigrated to Siam (now Thailand) with a substantial contract as a sculptor from the Royal Department of Fine Arts, under the reign of Rama VI, for whom he had already sculpted in Italy a year before the statue of the god Aruna that adorns the fountain in the garden of the Pyathai palace. With a permanent contract under Rama VII he received the commission for the monument to King Rama I which he came to cast in 1931 at the Marinelli Foundry. After the 1932 coup d’état that put an end to the absolute monarchy, he founded the first school of Fine Arts (Silpakorn in Thai) in the kingdom, later erected as a university in 1943.
In 1944 he became a Thai citizen with the name Silpa Bhirasri to protect himself from feared reprisals by the Japanese occupiers against the Italians after the fall of the fascist regime. He died in Bangkok in
1962, after having signed other royal monuments that still adorn the capital today. His Silpakorn has exceeded 30,000 students enrolled in 3 campuses and 14 faculties.
Monumental and sculptural works
