After the Second World War

The consequences of the Second World War were far less serious than the ones of the first one, and towards the end of the conflict, some influential members of the American troops campaigned for the rebound in the demand for sculptures of Val Gardena. The remainders of stock were sold out and in a short time the contacts with the American market were restored. Also the demand for religious sculptures rose again. At the beginning of the 60s, at least 2/3 of the manufactured sculptures were exported; between 75 and 80 % of this amount went to the United States. The North American market was especially attractive due to the widespread Catholicism and the tendency of the Church to prefer a simple liturgic decoration. The exports to South America outranged the ones to European countries too, inclusive Germany, which in the meanwhile had lost its importance as business partner, above all in the first post-war years. The succeeding Vatican II reforms (1962-’65) including even soberer statutes, led for several years to a complete stall of demand on the market. What continued to work well was the business with the small wooden figures with countries such as the United States, Germany, Switzerland and Italy. In contrast to the pre-war period, the sale of small products on the national market increased until representing 25 %.

Val Garden’s wood handcraft had reached such a dimension that there were no family left in the valley which wasn’t in possess of the necessary tools to carve a statue. In 1965 approximately 2000 people were employed in the sculpture sector, which corresponds to 1/3 of the entire valleys’ population.

As regards the organization of the handcraft, two tendencies could be made out: while the wood carvers joint forces, the sculptors and the painters preferred to have a more individual work status. Therefore, the big sculpture laboratories employing between 15 and 20 scholars, which had characterized Ortisei until 1900, disappeared. This change is to attribute to three factors: the desire of the sculptors to free themselves from the dependence of the wholesalers, a continuous increasing demand for wooden figures, which also became more and more challenging, and fiscal reasons.