Born in Val Gardena, Guido Anton Muss has become familiar with wood carving since he was very young. The first carving skills are taught to him by his mother in their small home laboratory. His passion for the wood is engrained in his culture, his language and to linked his most intimate affections. Anton’s wood carving experience defines the way that he sculpts. Such traits, will become a distinctive feature of his workings and constitute his unique style during all his life.
Anton’s training and apprenticeship at the Art Institute in Florence and Magistero in Venice – which take place from 1953 to 1963 – allow him to connect with broader and more experimental artistic styles that are starting to form during that period. Anton will take inspiration from the exposure to that enhanced creativity and become a component to the development of his more mature style, fusing the new techniques with his original skills and interpretation.
Anton was the fifth and youngest child in a family with a strong representation of females. Women become his most celebrated and distinctive subject, projecting the figures with adoration and a strong feelings of love and respect. The freshness of Anton’s art does not morph the women into ethereal and idealised beings. Women remain vibrant, real, through the presence of a touch of lipstick, of a ring worn on a finger, of an elegant shoe worn with grace. The women that Muss sculpts live in our world and express their beauty with a combination of elegance and assertion. Their look is always focusing away from the observer, offering an aura of mystery.
Guido Anton Muss has participated to several joint exhibitions around the world, including Paris, Geneva, Vienna, Munich, New York City, Chicago and Mexico City. His personal exhibitions have been offered in many Italian locations, in New York City and in Saint Louis, France. His sculptures are exposed in Venice, Innsbruck, Bolzano, Mexcio City and Kemijärvi, Finland. The Museum of Modern Art in Mexico City and the Museum Ferdinandeum di Innsbruck hold Anton’s sculptures in their permanent exhibition.