Giuliano Pedretti was a Swiss draughtsman, sgraffito artist and sculptor.
Giuliano Pedretti was the oldest son of the painter Turo Pedretti and the singer Marguerite Pedretti-His. He studied from 1942 to 1943 at the Kunstgewerbeschule Zürich. Since Pedretti was color-blind, he could not work as a painter, but worked primarily sculpturally. Already as a student, Pedretti was influenced by Alberto Giacometti, whom he visited frequently in Paris from 1953.
Since 1943 he had a studio in his parents’ house in Samedan. When the house was destroyed by an avalanche in 1951, he set up his studio in the neighboring Celerina. In 1949 he was a scholarship holder of the Swiss Institute in Rome. Pedretti also carried out commissions for sgraffito work on houses and churches. His work comprises more than 300 sculptures. His works can be found in the Kunstmuseum Bern and the Bündner Kunstmuseum in Chur, among others.
In addition to his sculptural work, he was committed to the preservation of Romanesque culture and, together with Dora Lardelli, played a major role in 1988 in the founding of the Upper Engadine Cultural Archive and in 1995 in the establishment of the Andrea Robbi Museum in Sils Maria. His brother was the sculptor and painter Gian Pedretti.
