Salvatore Emblema biography

Salvatore Emblema was an Italian painter and artist. He was born in Terzigno, in the province of Naples, in 1929. He attended the Liceo Artistico first and then the Accademia di Belle Arti in Naples. After finishing his studies, he moved to Rome where he met the poet and writer Ugo Moretti. The latter introduced him to Monsignor Francia, head of the Vatican Museums, who acted as an intermediary with Pope Pius XII for the commission of a portrait of His Holiness.
In 1955, he moved for a short period to New York where he met Rothko and Pollock and where he got to know Carlo Giulio Argan, with whom he began a relationship of esteem and collaboration. Carlo Argan shared with him the experience of Lucio Fontana, whose paintings went beyond the canvas thanks to cuts that the artist made on the canvas itself, and challenged him to create paintings that go beyond the canvas without being pierced.
In 1958, Salvatore Emblema returned to Rome and, having few economic resources, began painting on a sackcloth, building the frames himself. In preparation for an exhibition in Turin and with Argan's words still fresh in his mind, the artist started unraveling the canvas so that the space behind it became visible; in short, he unweaved it, bringing the space behind the canvas to life. This marked the beginning of the unweaving period for which the painter is best known.
In 1969, he was offered the chair of painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome, which the artist, due to his reserved nature, declined, leading him to take refuge in Terzigno where he would remain for the rest of his life.
In 1981, during the artist's exhibition at the Palazzo del Ridotto in Cesena, Giulio Carlo Argan selected some paintings to be displayed at the Galleria degli Uffizi, where they are still preserved. In 1982, he participated in the XL Biennale di Venezia. He continued to exhibit in group shows in Italy and abroad until his death in 2006.