Samona Pupino Biography
Pupino Samonà (1925 – 2007) was a Sicilian painter, born in Palermo in 1925 to an ancient Sicilian family. Since 1949 he has lived in Rome, where he participated in the pictorial avant-garde of his time. His exhibitions are held in London, Jerusalem, Beirut, Basel, Moscow as well as in Italy. For decades, Pupino Samonà's research has harmonized painting and science in a visionary path, which will be defined as "figurative of the cosmos". He himself preferred not to be considered an abstractionist, but a "landscape painter of the cosmos". Friend and student of Giacomo Balla, he was responsible for the influences on the themes of energy and the cosmos, expressed in his paintings through airbrush painting. The meeting with Corrado Cagli and the dialectical relationship that develops between the two are also fruitful for Samonà. Rome was decisive for the improvement of his techniques, where he was often a guest of the Galleria Trastevere, directed by Topazia Alliata. Also important were the meetings and discussions with the poet Emilio Villa and the physicist Marcello Beneventano. Frequentations that open him to profound investigations into the universe, man and energy. In 1980, Samonà created, on behalf of the ANED (Association of former deportees) and based on the project of the architect Lodovico Barbiano di Belgiojoso (founder of the famous Studio BBPR), the Italian Auschwitz Memorial, a gigantic work (over two hundred meters long) set up in the block 21 inside the concentration camp, in honor of the Italian victims of the concentration camp. From here, Samonà continues his research in the field of light, energy and the cosmos. In 2004, the Presidency of the Council of Ministers awarded Samonà the "Award for Culture". In 2006, Palermo dedicated a large anthology to him, entitled From departure to return, which followed by a year the exhibition at the Vittoriano in Rome, the capital's tribute to his artistic career. Pupino Samonà died in Palermo on 14 September 2007.
