After finishing elementary school, he attended gymnasium classes at the Faenza Seminary from 1898 to 1902 with diligence and profit. He then enrolled in the School of Arts and Crafts in Faenza directed by Prof. A. Berti and attended the plastic course conducted by Prof. M. Campello. Among his fellow students were Anselmo Bucci, Giovanni Guerrini and Aldo Zama, young men who would later become an integral part of Faenza’s cultural scene.
At the same time he was part of what was later called the “Cenacolo Baccarini” (to which Baccarini himself, Drei, Guerrini, Melandri, Nonni, Rambelli, Ugonia … appparticipated) ; his first work experience took place at the Fabbrica di Maioliche dei F.lli Virginio and Venturino Minardi.
In 1906 he participated together with the Baccarini group in the Faenza Figurative Arts Exhibition, immediately highlighting his skill as a sculptor and plasticist. Confirmation came in 1908 at the Esposizione Torricelliana in Faenza where he was awarded the Silver Medal for sculpture.
In 1909 he left the F.lli Minardi factory to attend the Accademia di Belle Arti in Florence together with Francesco Nonni. Unfortunately family problems forced him to interrupt his studies, he returned to Faenza welcomed back by the F.lli Minardi. But Gatti is always looking for new experiences and is attracted to the great cultural and artistic center of the capital.With Virginio’s death, the Minardi Factory ceases operations; Gatti immediately leaves for Rome and enrolls in the free nude school.Unfortunately, he is again forced to leave his studies because he is recalled to arms.
In 1915 he is enlisted in the Bersaglieri Corps, fights on the Karst, then is assigned to a unit in Genoa. Discharged, he returned to Faenza in 1919 and worked as a ceramist at the Manifattura Ceramica ex Fabbrica Farina.
On April 30, 1925, he married Lucia Servadei in Faenza.
Later that year he accepted an interesting job offer from Castellini and Masini’s “Faventia Ars” where he could create more freely and also express himself in sculpture with very modern and personal inventions.
Gatti did not, however, feel totally independent and with the financial intervention of his friend Luigi Montalbini, on June 29, 1928, he founded the “Bottega Gatti & C.” near his home, located in an old nineteenth-century street in the Borgo (Via Bologna piccola).
With acquired and solid experience, Gatti combines typical Faenza decorations with new elements made with his own technique with metallic and polychrome reflections decorations at the highest level.
Through journalist Giuseppe Fabbri he has contacts with the Futurist movement, and on October 28 at the headquarters of the Soc. Musicale “G. Sarti” in Faenza Filippo Tommaso Marinetti inaugurates the “First Exhibition of Futurist Ceramics.” Gatti enlisted the collaboration of Giacomo Balla, Benedetta Marinetti, Mario Guido Dal Monte and Remo Fabbri by transferring from their sketches the designs to be used on polychrome Futurist ceramics.
In addition to the ceramics resulting from his collaboration with these artists, Gatti made new Futurist decorations that he applied to new forms.With these ceramics he participated in 1929 in the International Exhibition in Barcelona and in the “Thirty-three Futurists” Exhibition held at the “Galleria Pesaro” in Milan.
In 1930 he began his collaboration with Giò Ponti. From this time he produced works of modern taste, some with opaque enamels and gold decorations, others with iridescent drippings on metallic reflections. It is a relationship that is consolidated with Gatti’s participation in the various Triennials in Milan.
He also intensified his presence at art competitions, obtaining at the 1932 Bologna Exposition the Gold Medal and Cross of Merit for artistic ceramics and at the 1934 Florence Exhibition Trade Fair the Gold Medal and Cross of Merit for artistic and modern ceramics. In 1936 he participated in the 6th Milan Triennale and the following year was present at the International Exhibition in Paris. Also in that year he was awarded Second Prize for sculpture at the VII Settimana Faentina.
These were years of happy insights for Gatti, and for this he was commissioned important works of considerable size for churches and private buildings both in Italy and abroad.
His achievements are now famous and the decorative motifs from the impasti embellished with pinkish-yellow reflections, both coppery and greenish, assure him the greatest success abroad as well.
At the 1938 Berlin International Exhibition Gatti was awarded the highest honor : the Gold Medal. In 1942 he is the winner of several prizes at the 4th National Ceramic Competition in Faenza, Italy.
When the war ended in April 1945, the almost total destruction of Faenza limited the work of everyone, both artisans and artists, but from 1946 with the reconstruction Gatti resumed full ceramic production.
At the 15th National Ceramic Competition in Faenza in 1957 he received the Gold Medal of the President of the Senate of the Republic, and in 1959 he was appointed a Corporate Member of the International Institute of the Legion of Honor in Rome.
In that year he was also the winner of the prestigious Palladio Prize in Vicenza, and in 1960 he was honored in Munich.
His prestige grew day by day and for his fruitful and continuous activity, which offered so much to lovers of culture and art, he was proposed for significant awards : from appointment as a Member of the “Tommaso Campanella” Academy in Rome to Member of the Academy of Sciences, Letters and Arts in Milan.
Endowed with an extraordinarily determined character, an engaging exuberance and great artistic vitality, he was able to create new and original sculptures to the last with his mossy green and gold made with metallic reflections, which represent one of his best features.
Riccardo Gatti’s passing occurred in Faenza to coincide with the feast of St. Peter and Paul on June 29, 1972.