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The original work, a terracotta from 1966, belongs to a significant phase in Guidi’s career, marked by female figures with pure, sometimes soft lines. The loss of his father during World War I strengthened his bond with his mother. In 1941, he married Giuliana Iacometti, with whom he had two sons, Vittorio, born in 1944, and Fabrizio, born in 1952. Marriage and fatherhood profoundly influenced his art, making Woman and Maternity recurring themes throughout his career.

In 1983, when the new middle school in Via P.I. da Carrara was named after Ugo Guidi, the Municipality of Forte dei Marmi commissioned a large-scale reproduction of this work – Female Figure in an Environment – in Iranian travertine, a material that reminded the Maestro of the beloved Versilian tuff. The statue, fully symbolizing the continuity of life through mutual respect and cultural education, rises vertically like a totem, embodying the feminine, intended as femininity in its immutable essence.

Placed at the school entrance, the sculpture greets young students each day, opening up to them in a tangible way, with the semicircular base also serving as a welcoming seat.

In 2012, on the centenary of Guidi’s birth, the school and the artist’s family created a project in which pupils, just like sculptors, modeled and decorated ceramic hands arranged around the monument in an “ideal embrace to Ugo Guidi.” The work interacts with its surroundings and opens to the ever-unfolding flow of life, “…that becoming which always runs through the Art of this Artist...”