This museum, given over to the artistic production of Albino Manca, houses his donation of bronze, marble and terra cotta sculptures, as well as medals, paintings, and works in silver and wax. Manca was born in Tertenia in 1898 and grew up there, soon showing a precocious artistic aptitude. A volunteer in the First World War, he completed his artistic education in 1926 at the Rome Fine Arts Academy. Here in the capital he was fortunate to be given financial support by the Leopardi counts, frequented high society circles and wholly assimilated the classical taste that later became the most evident characteristic of his art. In this period he painted many portraits of leading celebrities (the Duchess of Apulia in a wedding dress, Mussolini, and various ambassadors and noble ladies) and sculpted bronzes with different subjects (including the "Sleeping Girl", which enjoyed great critical success at the 1935 Rome Quadrennial Exposition). An elegant and sensitive sculptor, Manca did not neglect to express himself with the magniloquence typical of the culture of the time, as can be seen in the four colossal bronze statues sculpted for the Legione dei Carabinieri of Cagliari. In 1938, Manca left Rome and immigrated to New York, where he lived in Greenwich Village, the artists' quarter. Thanks to his stubborn, determined temperament, he managed to overcome the difficulties of the early years there and his talent finally came to the fore. He was called upon to work for both public and private bodies, producing monumental and small sculpture, engravings, embossing, jewellery (which revealed the influence of the Liberty style as well as of Japanese art), medals and portraits. He achieved great recognition by winning the competition for the East Coast War Memorial, with the gigantic bronze eagle in Battery Park, at the tip of Manhattan, a monument inaugurated by President Kennedy in 1963. The artist donated a small bronze model of this work to the town of Tertenia, where it now stands in the main square. In 1965, Manca was asked to make the commemorative gold medal on occasion of Pope Paul VI's historic visit to New York. Again at New York, in 1969, he created the large bronze gate of the Children's Zoo, which depicts the three kingdoms of nature - the earth, sea and air - in the harmonious forms of a fable. Albino Manca died in New York in 1976 and is buried at Tertenia.

E.mail: museoditertenia@tiscali.it
Via Doria, 12 - Tertenia

(source: Guida ai Beni culturali della provincia dell'Ogliastra)