Rodolfo Arico' Artwork valuations, appraisals and auction estimates

Rodolfo Aricò (Milan, 1930 – Milan, 2002) was an Italian painter, set designer and teacher. Rodolfo Aricò was born in Milan on 3 June 1930. Read the full biography

Rodolfo Arico' Biography

Rodolfo Aricò (Milan, 1930 – Milan, 2002) was an Italian painter, set designer and teacher. Rodolfo Aricò was born in Milan on 3 June 1930. Between 1946 and 1950 he attended the Liceo Artistico di Brera, where his art history professor was Guido Ballo. He later studied at the Faculty of Architecture at the Polytechnic of Milan, alternating studies and pictorial experiences with an interest in architecture. In 1957 his first personal exhibition was held at the Bergamini Gallery in Milan and the following year he met Carlo Grossetti, who in 1959 invited him to exhibit in a personal exhibition at the Salone Annunciata in Milan. In 1962 he participated in the exhibition New perspectives of Italian painting at Palazzo Re Enzo in Bologna and in 1964 he exhibited the work Triptych of existence at the XXXII Venice Biennale. Since 1965 he has been inspired by Delaunay and worked on the figure of an archetype made up of two discs, whose circumferences intersect according to different orthogonal directions. Roberto Sanesi dedicated the volume Reperti: for a study on the painting of Rodolfo Aricò to him and in the same year the artist participated in the IX Quadrennial of Rome; on this occasion the National Gallery of Modern Art acquired one of his works, Work in progress Delaunay's “simultaneous forms”. Starting in 1966 he began his reflection on the objective aspects of artistic making and in 1967 he held a solo exhibition at the Galleria L'Attico in Rome, with a text in the catalog by Giulio Carlo Argan. In 1968 he was invited to the XXXIV Venice Biennale with a personal room, where he created an environmental space made up of large works. In this period he became friends with Toti Scialoja, for whom he was assistant at the Brera Art School. In 1969 he exhibited the work Pondus, four large three-dimensional structures that invade the space, at the Salone Annunciata in Milan - now in a collection at the Civic Museums of Cagliari, and held a solo exhibition at the Deson-Zacks Gallery in Chicago. Since the beginning of the Seventies Aricò has concentrated on the reinterpretation of the humanistic vision of the history of art and the archetypes of architecture. Start using thin layers of spray paint, layered in drops of color until you create a final result of monochrome. The humanistic theme is also expressed in the titles of his works - Arco, Quattrocento, Prospettiva per Paolo Uccello. In 1970 he inaugurated two exhibitions in Milan which took place simultaneously at the Salone Annunciata and at the Studio Marconi and the following year he became a teacher of scenography at the Academy of Fine Arts in Urbino. In 1973 he took part in the exhibition Iononrepresentonullaiodipingo at the Studio La Città in Verona and in 1974 his personal anthology was held at the International Center of Arts and Costume of Palazzo Grassi in Venice, where he exhibited large-scale works which are the structural evolution and object of his work since the mid-1960s. Precisely in 1974 he met the poet Carlo Invernizzi, with whom he established what Aricò himself defined as "a seamless partnership for about thirty years [...] with intellectual and spiritual influence". In 1975 he participated in a series of exhibitions including Peinture italienne d'aujourd'hui at the Galerie Espace 5 in Montreal and at the Galerie Templon in Paris, Empirica: art between addition and subtraction in Rimini and at the Castelvecchio Museum in Verona and Trompe l'oeil at the Stendhal Gallery in Milan. In the same year he was also invited to take part in the exhibition Active Space/Structure, organized by Guido Ballo at Studio Marconi in Milan and at the Galleria Rondanini in Rome. In 1976 he participated in the exhibition Color in Painting in Modigliana in Forlì and in 1977 the Municipality of Ferrara invited him for an anthology in the spaces of the Contemporary Art Pavilion in Parco Massari. In 1978 he created a scenography for Tardieu's "Teatro dell'Assurdo" at the Pier Lombardo Theater in Milan and took part in the exhibition The knots of representation at the Art Museum of the city of Ravenna, in which the analogical relationships between architecture are read and painting. On this occasion Aricò presents the work Scena di Ravenna, a work that represents a contamination between painting, scenography and architecture. In the same year he was assigned the chair of Scenography at the Brera Academy of Fine Arts. In 1980 the Rodolfo Aricò exhibition was held at the Casa del Mantegna in Mantua. Myth and architecture where he exhibits Scene of Mantua, which is made up of six suspended canvases, hung on three different levels of depth, which give life in the overall vision to the image of a tympanum - focusing once again on the investigation of relationships between architecture, painting and myth. The following year he participated in Lines of artistic research in Italy 1960/80 at the Palazzo delle Esposizioni in Rome and in 30 years of Italian art 1950/80. The emerging structure and expropriated languages ​​at Villa Manzoni in Lecco. In 1982 Aldo Rossi curated the exhibition Idea and knowledge at the Palazzo dell'arte at the Milan Triennale, on the occasion of which Aricò exhibited the work Timpano. Pulvis. He also participates in Construticità, an exhibition curated by Filiberto Menna, and in the XL Venice Biennale, where he exhibits Clinamen / Prometeo. In 1984 he inaugurated a personal exhibition at the Pavilion of Contemporary Art in Milan together with Gianni Colombo and the following year he participated with the work Portale, which once again presents itself as a reflection on the perceptive relationship between scene and painting, in the exhibition L' intelligence of the effect. The staging of the work of art at Palazzo Dugnani in Milan. In 1986 he participated in the traveling exhibition - between Frankfurt, Berlin, Hanover, Bregenz and Vienna - 1960/1985. Aspects of Italian art, curated by Flavio Caroli and exhibited the work Structure (1968) at the XLII Venice Biennale in the “Il colore” section. He later took part in La forma excitata (Galleria Morone in Milan) curated by Luciano Caramel and the Amici di Morterone Cultural Association invited him to the exhibition A reason inquieta at the Municipal Palace of Morterone. In January 1987 he exhibited at the Loggetta Lombardesca in Ravenna as part of the exhibition Disegnata, curated by Concetto Pozzati and in 1988 he participated in the traveling exhibition Emotion und Methode at the Galerie der Künstler in Munich and then at the Kunstverein in Ingolstadt. Giovanni Maria Accame invited him to take part in the artists' museum in Morterone and in Reason and Transgression at the Ex Convent of San Rocco in Carpi. In 1989 he participated in the exhibitions Those problematic years of the Seventies. From premises to consequences. Some protagonists of painting and sculpture, curated by Giorgio Cortenova at the Galleria dei Banchi Nuovi in ​​Rome, and The skin of art. Reflections on the surface curated by Lorenzo Mango at the Municipal Palace of Morterone and the Dosso Dossi Art Institute in Ferrara. During the nineties, Aricò created a series of personal exhibitions in which he exhibited works that reflected more on the relationship with space, understood as "drama" and an element of materiality in progress. In parallel with his artistic activity he also intensifies his theoretical activity, combining the writings relating to his work with visionary and fantastic stories of an autobiographical nature. In 1990 Elisabeth Bozzi invited him to the Divina mania exhibition. A double-headed poetics, in which the artistic research of Rodolfo Aricò, Carlo Ciussi and Pino Pinelli are placed in relation to the poetics of Carlo Invernizzi. In the same year the Lorenzelli Arte gallery in Milan brings together Rodolfo Aricò, Piero Dorazio and Vittorio Matino in an exhibition and the Studio Grossetti Gallery inaugurates Apropos of painting, Aricò, Gastini, Nigro. In 1991 the Studio Carlo Grossetti dedicated the anthological Aricò '70 to him and the Municipality of Milan organized the exhibition, curated by Elena Pontiggia and Elio Santarella, The mirage of lyricism at the Liljevalchs Konstall in Stockholm with works from the second half of the Sixties. In 1993 he was invited with Gianfranco Pardi to the Palazzo Comunale di Venzone for the exhibition La memoria dell'antico and the following year he participated in Venice and the Biennale at the Galleria d'Arte Moderna di Ca' Pesaro in Venice. In 1995 he took part in Trilogia 5 at the Rocca Paolina exhibition center in Perugia and two years later, in 1997, he presented works full of spirituality entitled Sere at the A arte Studio Invernizzi gallery in Milan. He took part in the Gefühle der Konstruktion exhibition at the Rabalderhaus Museum in Schwaz and, in 1998, he was invited to exhibit at the Italian Art exhibition. Last forty years. Aniconic painting at the Gallery of Modern Art in Bologna. In 2000 the Amici di Morterone Cultural Association invited him to the traveling exhibition Il corpofigura dell'image. Aspects of Italian art from the post-war period to today at the Städtische Galerie in Rosenheim, at the Civic Museums of Villa Manzoni in Lecco and at the Städtische Galerie Villa Zanders in Bergisch Gladbach and in the same year the Institute of Painting of the Academy of Fine Arts of Bologna presents the exhibition Rodolfo Aricò, works on paper. In 2001 the Spazio Annunciata Gallery in Milan presented his last solo exhibition. Aricò died in Milan on 22 June 2002. In 2005 a major retrospective of his was held at the Institut Mathildenhöhe in Darmstadt. In 2013 the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice dedicated a special exhibition and editorial study to him on the occasion of the Postwar exhibition. Italian protagonists. In October 2014 the Rodolfo Aricò exhibition opened at the Gallerie d'Italia - Piazza Scala. Restless painting, dedicated to the artist's last creative season, with the presentation of his works from the nineties from the Intesa Sanpaolo collections and the first full publication of his stories.