Valerio Adami (born 17 March 1935) is an Italian painter. Educated at the ''Accademia di Brera'' in

Milan Milan ( , , Lombard: ; it, Milano ) is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, and the second-most populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of about 1.4 million, while its metropolitan city h ...

, he has since worked in both

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

and

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...

. His art is influenced by Pop Art. Adami was born in

Bologna Bologna (, , ; egl, label=Emilian language, Emilian, Bulåggna ; lat, Bononia) is the capital and largest city of the Emilia-Romagna region in Northern Italy. It is the seventh most populous city in Italy with about 400,000 inhabitants and 1 ...

. In 1945, at the age of ten, he began to study

painting Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called the "matrix" or "support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush, but other implements, such as knives, sponges, and ai ...

under the instruction of

Felice Carena Felice Carena (13 August 1879 – 10 June 1966) was an Italian painter. Biography Born at Cumiana, he studied in the Turin's Accademia Albertina, where he attended symbolist poets such as Arturo Graf and Giovanni Cena. In 1906 he moved to ...

. He was accepted into the

Brera Academy The Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera ("academy of fine arts of Brera"), also known as the or Brera Academy, is a state-run tertiary public academy of fine arts in Milan, Italy. It shares its history, and its main building, with the Pinacoteca di ...

(Accademia di Brera) in 1951, and there studied as a draughtsman until 1954 in the studio of Achille Funi. In 1955 he went to

, where he met and was influenced by

Roberto Matta Roberto Sebastián Antonio Matta Echaurren (; November 11, 1911 – November 23, 2002), better known as Roberto Matta, was one of Chile's best-known painters and a seminal figure in 20th century abstract expressionist and surrealist art. Bio ...

and

Wifredo Lam Wifredo Óscar de la Concepción Lam y Castilla (; December 8, 1902 – September 11, 1982), better known as Wifredo Lam, was a Cuban artist who sought to portray and revive the enduring Afro-Cuban spirit and culture. Inspired by and in conta ...

. His first solo exhibition came in 1959 in Milan. In his early career, Adami's works were

expressionistic Expressionism is a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Northern Europe around the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it rad ...

, but by the time of his second exhibition in 1964 at Kassel, he had developed a style of painting reminiscent of French

cloisonnism Cloisonnism is a style of post-Impressionist painting with bold and flat forms separated by dark contours. The term was coined by critic Édouard Dujardin on the occasion of the Salon des Indépendants, in March 1888. Artists Émile Bernard, Lou ...

, featuring regions of flat color bordered by black lines. Unlike

Gauguin Eugène Henri Paul Gauguin (, ; ; 7 June 1848 – 8 May 1903) was a French Post-Impressionist artist. Unappreciated until after his death, Gauguin is now recognized for his experimental use of colour and Synthetist style that were distinct fr ...

, however, Adami's subjects were highly stylized and often presented in fragments, as seen in ''Telescoping Rooms'' (1965). In the 1970s, Adami began to address

politics Politics (from , ) is the set of activities that are associated with making decisions in groups, or other forms of power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of resources or status. The branch of social science that stud ...

in his art, and incorporated subject matter such as modern European history,

literature Literature is any collection of written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially prose fiction, drama, and poetry. In recent centuries, the definition has expanded to include ...

, philosophy, and

mythology Myth is a folklore genre consisting of narratives that play a fundamental role in a society, such as foundational tales or origin myths. Since "myth" is widely used to imply that a story is not objectively true, the identification of a narra ...

. In 1971, he and his brother Gioncarlo created the film ''Vacances dans le désert''. In 1974 he illustrated a Helmut Heissenbuttel poem, ''Occasional Poem No. 27. Ten Lessons on the Reich'' with ten original lithographs . In 1975, the philosopher Jacques Derrida devoted a long essay, "+R: Into the Bargain", to Adami's work, using an exhibition of Adami's drawings as a pretext to discuss the function of "the letter and the proper name ''in painting''", with reference to "narration, technical reproduction, ideology, the phoneme, the biographeme, and politics". There were four retrospective exhibits of Adami's work between 1985 and 1998. They were held in Paris, the Centre Julio-Gonzalez de Valence (

Spain , image_flag = Bandera de España.svg , image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg , national_motto = ''Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond") , national_anthem = (English: "Royal March") , i ...

Tel Aviv Tel Aviv-Yafo ( he, תֵּל־אָבִיב-יָפוֹ, translit=Tēl-ʾĀvīv-Yāfō ; ar, تَلّ أَبِيب – يَافَا, translit=Tall ʾAbīb-Yāfā, links=no), often referred to as just Tel Aviv, is the most populous city in the ...

, and

Buenos Aires Buenos Aires ( or ; ), officially the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires ( es, link=no, Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires), is the capital and primate city of Argentina. The city is located on the western shore of the Río de la Plata, on South ...

. In 2010, the Boca Raton Museum of Art devoted a special exhibit to Adami's paintings and drawings.Michael Mills
"The Boca Museum of Art Introduces Us to an Italian Artist We're Unlikely to Know"
''Broward-Palm Beach New Times'', November 4, 2010, accessed September 10, 2011.

References

External links

Biography and WorksAdami at Galleri GKM
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Adami, Valerio 1935 births Living people 20th-century Italian painters Italian male painters 21st-century Italian painters Modern painters Brera Academy alumni Italian contemporary artists 20th-century Italian male artists 21st-century Italian male artists