Heritage Malta is organizing an exhibition to commemorate 100 years since the death of Carlo Darmanin, Malta’s most important papier-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. Works by the artist, including a statue of St Joseph from the old parish in Santa Venera, as well as two kneeling angels from the same church, will be on display. 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 papier-mache statues and, throughout his career, produced several statues including Christ the Saviour which is found in the Lija Church, Saint Caetan in Hamrun, St Leonard in the Kirkop parish and the statue of St Julian in the parish church of the village dedicated to this saint, as well as several Good Friday statues.

Heritage Malta is also organizing a lecture by Renzo Gauci, a Maltese papier-mache statue maker who will be speaking about the art of papier-mache, and another by Victor Caruana, who has carried out in-depth research about papier-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.