Recognized throughout the world as one of the great contemporary masters, Valerio Adami was born in Italy on March 17, 1935. Decided, very young, to become a painter, he first studied in the studio of Felice Carena, in Venice. At sixteen, he received the encouragement of Oskar Kokoschka, then that of Achille Funi, his professor at the Beaux-Arts in Milan where he drew for entire days. In 1955, he set off to tour Europe, the Americas, Africa and Asia, leaving paintings everywhere announcing this style that one would like to say is unparalleled, born of a design that is both supple and firm, modern. and nevertheless classic… In short, a work apart, applauded by critics and collectors. In 1964, Valerio Adami hung his paintings at Documenta III in Kassel. In 1968, he obtained a room at the Venice Biennale. He was hailed in 1970 by a first retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art of the City of Paris, which was followed by another, at the Center Pompidou, in 1985.

As we have said: an unclassifiable painting. It is nonetheless ranked by art historians within a movement born in the 1960s, called “Narrative Figuration”. A figure of speech, in truth, which should never make us forget what Aimé Maeght admired in Valerio Adami: a typically Latin genius in coloring. A certain taste for antiquity, for introspection, for the unspeakable. This will earn him another admiration, that of Octavio Paz, Nobel Prize for Literature, who perfectly summed up the man and the work: “Besides the fact that Adami is a singularly intelligent painter, his painting is intelligent; I mean: it seduces not only our sensibility, but our thought. Adami’s paintings intrigue us and make us think. This is a painting that questions, something unusual these days.”

A strong and faithful companionship, begun in the summer of 2006, unites Valerio Adami and Cristel Éditeur d’Art. It gave birth to the creation of several prints and several exhibitions.

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