Arturo Vermi Artwork valuations, appraisals and auction estimates

(Bergamo 1928 - Paderno D'Adda 1988) Having dedicated himself to painting since the beginning of the 1950s, thanks to his self-taught training and an inspiration of expressionist and Nordic memory, Arturo Vermi moved in the middle of the decade towards the informal sphere, then rampant on an international scale, thanks to the frequenting of the Milanese artistic environment, and of Brera in particular. His first solo exhibition in the premises of the Pirelli after-work club, at the time a lively exhibition space for contemporary avant-garde trends, dates back to 1956, but it was with the two years spent in Paris starting from 1960 that the artist achieved his definitive maturation, also thanks to his frequenting some of the main ateliers beyond the Alps such as those of André Blok, Szabo and Ossip Zadkine. Read the full biography

Arturo Vermi Biography

(Bergamo 1928 - Paderno D'Adda 1988) Having dedicated himself to painting since the beginning of the 1950s, thanks to his self-taught training and an inspiration of expressionist and Nordic memory, Arturo Vermi moved in the middle of the decade towards the informal sphere, then rampant on an international scale, thanks to the frequenting of the Milanese artistic environment, and of Brera in particular. His first solo exhibition in the premises of the Pirelli after-work club, at the time a lively exhibition space for contemporary avant-garde trends, dates back to 1956, but it was with the two years spent in Paris starting from 1960 that the artist achieved his definitive maturation, also thanks to his frequenting some of the main ateliers beyond the Alps such as those of André Blok, Szabo and Ossip Zadkine. The first "Lavagne" were born precisely in that context, while the series of the so-called "Lapidi" can be dated back to his return to Milan in 1961: already in those works, Vermi would write years later, that he felt "the need for a certainty , of a belief that justified life on the planet; a determined, rigorous figure, like a square. The square was always the final solution of every painting". It is the time in which with Ettore Sordini and Angelo Verga, Vermi gave life to the Cenobio Group, subsequently integrated by Agostino Ferrari, Alberto Lucia and Ugo La Pietra. Starting from the two-year period 1961/62, the first "Diaries" came to light, in which the graphic experiences made in Paris led the artist to "engrave traces in the square, signs, writings", for which "the sign is interpreter of space, also proposed as a conceptual image": signs that repeat themselves with reiterated and ordered sequences, to mark the rectangular surface of the pictorial page. In 1964 Vermi resided in the Quartiere delle Botteghe in Sesto San Giovanni where, with other artists, including Agostino Bonalumi, Enrico Castellani, Lino Marzulli and Lino Tiné, he worked to transfer artistic experiences into everyday life. At the same time, with a contract that commits him to a long series of exhibitions, he becomes involved with the architect Arturo Cadario. In 1965, his acquaintance with Lucio Fontana led him to delve deeper into the concept of space, which he immediately developed in his own work: "In 1965", Vermi himself recalled, "I began a work that I would define as space. By space, now, I mean the void , the space outside the earth, the cosmic space". But, as the artist confirmed in another interview, also the need "for a breath, for a pause, like when someone screams in anger for years, years and years and feels exhausted, exhausted, destroyed. And then the need for calm, for silence [...] simple values, in the wild, essential and pure and here I found the blank page, the space but not to fill it, but rather to strip it and leave a silvery horizontal sign in the midst of a blue, or two signs in the middle of the whole empty painting and so I called that series "Landscapes". Shortly following, and then exhibited by Cadario in 1969, were the so-called "Inserts": "building spaces with a island, a rectangle in a larger, much larger space, with traces or signs seeking a landing place". It is the beginning of a fortunate period, culminating with the critical successes achieved during the exhibitions at the Galleria Blu in Milan, at the Rotonda della Besana and at the Piombi in Venice, all in 1974. The following year, 1975, was a milestone in the artist's life and in his work: in fact, that proposal of happiness began that would lead Vermi to the editorial office of the first issue of "Azzurro" (1975) and of the "Disengagement Manifesto" (1978). Having moved to Verderio, in Brianza, in the same year the Ministry of Education commissioned him to make a documentary on his work to be used as a teaching aid for high schools. In 1978 he resumed and expanded the themes and concepts expressed in the "Disengagement Manifesto" and a second issue of "Azzurro" was distributed during the Venice Biennale. In the same year, finally, he set out that work of ornamentation and reuse which would then flow into the cycle of large canvases "How beautiful the Earth was". Then in 1980 he designed and recorded "La Sequoia"; a sort of table of laws that the following year, during a trip to Egypt with Antonio Paradiso and Nanda Vigo, he will return to Moses on Mount Sinai. Also in 1980 his work focuses on the suite "I Colloqui", which presages the creation of his last work: "L'Annologio", a time meter "more human, more in tune with our times", as defined the artist; a clock that completes a rotation of a year like the earth around the sun and that does not divide human life into fractions, with the consequent obligations, duties and impositions. In May 1983 Vermi wrote that he wanted to do "only beautiful things" and no longer "analyze the errors and horrors of men or pass on their memory".