Cyclists - Original Silkscreenn by Ugo Nespolo - 2008 2008

Original screen print from an edition of 260. Numbered and hand signed. Excellent conditions. Ugo Nespolo, born at Mosso Santa Maria (Biella), has graduated at the Albertina Academy of Fine Arts of Turin and has a degree in Modern Literature. His career as an artist dates back to the Sixties to the era of Italian Pop Art to Conceptualists and Future Poverists. During those early days, his work was shown in Remo Pastori's Il Punto Gallery in Turin and Schwartz Art Gallery in Milan. Never a fully-fledged member of any particular movement, he has always adopted a distinctly ironical and transgressive stance with a highly personal sense of fun that has become his trademark. In the Seventies, Nespolo also took over a new medium: the cinema, particularly of the experimental, artistic variety. The actors in his films were fellow artists from Lucio Fontana to Enrico Baj and Michelangelo Pistoletto. Nespolo's films have been the subject of exhibitions at prestigious institutions like the Beaubourg in Paris, the Philadelphia Museum of Modern Art, Warsaw's Filmoteka Polska and Ferrara's Galleria Civica d'Arte Moderna. Nespolo's career took a major step forward in the Seventies. In 1974 he won the Bolaffi Award; in 1975-76 he created The Museum, a painting 10 metres long that marked the start of a still unfinished exploration (review - analysis - reinvention) of other artists' work. The Museum went on show for the first time in 1976 at Livorno's Museo Progressivo d'Arte Contemporanea. In the Seventies Nespolo also began experimenting with new techniques (embroidery, marquetry) and new materials (alabaster, ebony, mother-of-pearl, ivory, porcelain, silver). Nespolo's Hat Tree that was subsequently mass-produced and sold as an ornament, dates from that period. The Eighties were also the period of Nespolo's venture into the field of the applied arts. Loyal to the old Avant Garde precept that ''art needs to be taken into life'', he is convinced that the contemporary artist is under an obligation to escape from the prison house of late Romantic cliché. Evidence of this philosophy comes in the fifty or so posters created for a variety of exhibitions and other events. They include posters for “Azzurra”, the Turin Motor Show and the National Sailing Federation; the 1986 RAI calendar; the sets for the Stamford production of Busoni's Turandot; title sequences for various RAI TV shows (like Renzo Arbore's Indietro Tutta). In 1986, Genoa celebrated Nespolo's twenty-year output with a comprehensive exhibition, La Bella Insofferenza, at Villa Croce. In 1990 Milan's Palazzo Reale presented another major exhibition of Nespolo's work. In that year, he also did prestigious work for clients like the Campari advertising campaign, the sets and costumes for Paisiello's Don Chisciotte at Rome's Teatro dell'Opera. He also had an exhibition of ceramics, his new interest, at the International Biennial of Ceramics and Antiques held in Faenza's Exhibition Centre. In 1991 Nespolo contributed to the International Ceramics Festival in Japan at Shigaraki Ceramic World. In 1992 the Borghi and Co. Gallery in New York presented A Fine Intolerance, a one-man show of Nespolo's paintings and ceramics. In 1994 the Aosta Valley Region presented an exhibition of his film work at the Tour Fromage in Aosta. In the following year Nespolo did the sets and costumes for Donizetti's Elisir D'Amore a production that appeared at the Rome Opera, the Paris Opera and the opera houses of Lausanne, Liège and Metz. Again in 1995, the exhibition Casa d'Arte Nespolo appeared in Milan's Palazzo della Permanente and a one-man show of his paintings was put on by the Romanian Ministry of Culture in Bucharest. In 1996 his one-man show entitled Le Stanze dell'Arte was organised by the Regional Government of Piedmont in Turin's Promotrice delle Belle Arti. A few months later, Ugo Nespolo was appointed Art Director of Richard-Ginori. 1997: the La Valletta Museum of Fine Arts in Malta devoted an exhibition to Nespolo's work. Meanwhile a travelling exhibition of his work opened in Buenos Aires (Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes) went on to Cordoba (Centro de Arte Contemporaneo de Cordoba, Chateau Carreras) and Mendoza (Museo Municipal de Arte Moderno de Mendoza) and then to Montevideo (Museo Nacional de Artes Visuales). 1998: Renzo Arbore inaugurates the monument Lavorare, Lavorare, Lavorare, preferisco il rumore del mare realized by Nespolo for the city of San Benedetto del Tronto. He starts his collaboration with the historical art glassworks Barovier & Toso and creates in Murano a series of works to exhibit at Palazzo Ducale in Venice for “Aperto Vetro” The International Exibition of Contemporary Glass. A one-man show took place in July at the “Palazzina Azzurra” of San Benedetto del Tronto. Beginning 2000 the Naples Municipality dedicates him, an anthological exhibition and for the Jubilee year Nespolo illustrates a precious edition of the Apocalypse (introduced by Bruno Forte). 2001: Nespolo returns to cinema with FILM/A/TO interpreted by Edoardo Sanguineti and produced by the Turin Association of “Museo Nazionale del Cinema” for the retrospective “Turin, berceau du cinéma italien” at the Centre Pompidou, Paris. Still in 2001; a one-man show in Fukui, Japan, inside the show “2001 Italy in Japan”. 2002: Nespolo is appointed art consultant and coordinator of the integration project of the contemporary art works to be placed in the stations of the Turin Underground in course of construction. The La Mandria Park of Venaria Reale houses at Villa dei Laghi some of his sculptures within the exhibition ''International Sculpture at La Mandria''. Alitalia airway company inaugurate its new headquarter in New York with Nespolo's one-man show. 2003: an itinerant exhibition in Eastern Europe (from Moscow Modern Art Gallery, to St. Petersburg, Minsk to Latvia (Modern Art Gallery, Riga). A one-man show at The Istituto Italiano di Cultura of Paris. During the International Film Festival of Locarno, Switzerland two one-man shows: at the Festival seat and care of the Modern Art Gallery. An important exhibition at the Chinese National Museum of Peking. Throught 2004 important shows held abroad: at the Ciurlionis National Museum of Art, Vilnius (Lithuania); at the Guang Dong Museum of Art of Guangzhou, Canton (China); at the Moscow Museum of Modern Art and at the Fine Arts Russian Academy of St. Petersburg. 2005: An important show at the Poldi Pezzoli Museum in Milan with the presentation of the artist book “32+1 per Nespolo”. At the Hong Kong Cultural Centre is hosted the itinerant exhibition previously held in Peking, Canton and Shanghai. Cinema again for Nespolo with “Dentro e Fuori”, a film portrait of Angelo Pezzana, produced by the Museo Nazionale del Cinema of Turin. Nespolo illustrates a prestigious edition of the “Thousand and One Nights” with introductory text by Angelo Arioli. In 2006 the Turin Metro opens its first line stations with Nespolo’s video-images. Two shows for the “XX Winter Olympic Game of Torino 2006” and the illustration of “Più veloce dell’aquila” a tale by Stefania Belmondo. In 2007 Nespolo has been charged by the Puccini Festival Foundation with the realization of sets and costumes of the Opera “Madama Butterfly”. The “Drappellone” for the famous Palio di Siena 2007 will bring Nespolo’s signature.