FIUME Salvatore
Impossible cities, islands populated by statues, female figures, and distant landscapes make up the imaginative universe of Salvatore Fiume. A painter, sculptor, writer, and set designer, the Sicilian artist developed a figurative language in which the memory of the Renaissance meets the evocative power of Metaphysical painting and a taste for fantastical storytelling. In his artworks, reality is not abandoned but transformed into a suspended scene, governed by monumental architecture and unexpected perspectives.
From his training in Urbino to imaginary cities
Born in Comiso on October 23, 1915, Fiume receives a scholarship at the age of sixteen to attend the Royal Institute for Book Illustration in Urbino. There, he develops his drawing skills and encounters printmaking techniques, from lithography and etching to woodcut and screenprint. In 1936, he moves to Milan, where he joins a cultural circle enlivened by figures such as Salvatore Quasimodo and Dino Buzzati; two years later, he goes to Ivrea and works at Olivetti, overseeing the art direction of a cultural magazine. Alongside painting, he writes, publishing his autobiographical novel Viva Gioconda! in 1943. In 1946, he leaves the company and settles in Canzo, where he turns a nineteenth-century silk mill into his studio.
His imaginative world matures through engagement with the Italian Quattrocento and the work of Giorgio de Chirico, Alberto Savinio, and Carlo Carrà. He is drawn to the solidity of Piero della Francesca and Paolo Uccello's figures, their use of perspective, and the relationship between space and architecture; from Metaphysical art, he borrows the ability to make familiar places and objects enigmatic. In 1948, he also explores the relationship between image and identity: he paints a series of Spanish-inspired artworks, signs them Francisco Queyo, and invents the biography of this imaginary painter, presented as a Roma exile in Paris. The artworks are exhibited at Galleria Gussoni in Milan.
In 1949, under his own name, he presented the cycles Cities of Statues and Islands of Statues at the Galleria Borromini in Milan: visions of fantastical architecture, sculptural presences, and timeless landscapes. The works attracted the attention of Alfred H. Barr Jr., associated with the Museum of Modern Art in New York. L'The following year, Fiume took part in the Venice Biennale with the triptych Island of Statues, supported by Alberto Savinio.
Monumental Painting, Theater, and Travel
Fiume's flair for set design also found expression in major commissions. Between 1949 and 1952, he created a cycle of paintings devoted to the history of Umbria, housed at Palazzo Donini in Perugia. In 1951, Gio Ponti commissioned a work from him for the ocean liner Andrea Doria: an imaginary Renaissance city that would be lost when the ship sank in 1956. From 1952 onward, he also worked with Teatro alla Scala in Milan, creating sets and costumes; he continued this work for other theaters, including the Royal Opera House in London. The stage thus became a natural extension of his painted architecture.
Travel further expanded the artist's repertoire. African, Mediterranean, and Polynesian landscapes intertwine with female figures, vivid colors, and sculptural forms. Alongside painting, Fiume pursued sculpture, particularly in bronze, and experimented with unusual supports such as painted stones. In 1973, he worked directly on several rocks in the Babile Valley in Ethiopia, taking the image beyond the boundaries of the traditional picture.
Graphic Art and Artistic Legacy
His training in Urbino fostered a lasting interest in graphic art. Lithography, based on the principle of repulsion between water and greasy substances, makes it possible to preserve the quality of the drawn line; etching, by contrast, entrusts the drawing to the action of an acid on a metal plate. Woodcut and screenprint offer different possibilities for building forms and areas of color. Fiume's editions often feature figurative subjects, fantastical cities, and images drawn from his pictorial repertoire. For every print, it is essential to distinguish an original print from the photomechanical reproduction of a painting by verifying the actual technique and the available documentation.
Included in collections such as the Museum of Modern Art and the Vatican Museums, which acquired a group of thirty-three artworks in 1978, Fiume continued working across different disciplines until his final years. He died in Milan on June 3, 1997. His legacy lies in his ability to maintain a recognizable figurative identity across painting, sculpture, graphic art, and set design, always shaped by a personal dialogue between classicism and invention.