With a father and grandfather famous throughout Pietrasanta for their first-rate craftsmanship, Stefano Castelli comes from a long line of modellers.
He began work after obtaining his Diploma from the art school (where his father taught modelling) and following several years’ apprenticeship in his father’s studio.
Since 1986 he has been modelling alone in his studio, even though the works of art he has to copy are often very large and usually require the help of others: for example, with the casts for stage scenery sculptures designed by I. Mitoraj for the opera “Manon Lescaut”, put on at the Festival di Torre del Lago in 2005.
He regularly works for the numerous artists who come to Pietrasanta (Romano Cosci and Gunther Stilling, for example), although has also been asked to carry out important restoration work. For the ------- he made a silicone cast of a sculpture by Antonio Canova and has also carried out a lot of ornate architectural work for private clients requiring particular features like brackets or friezes of unusual design.