Ugo Nespolo biography

- UGO NESPOLO PAINTER

 

Ugo Nespolo, born in 1941 in Mosso Santa Maria, in the province of Biella, is a renowned Italian artist known for his versatility and his ironic and playful approach to art. His life and career have been marked by constant experimentation, transgression, and a personal sense of fun that has characterized his works. 

He moves to Turin where his father, Libero, runs a business of measuring instruments and technical articles. Here, he attends the Accademia Albertina di Belle Arti, where he obtains a diploma in painting, and the Università degli Studi di Torino, where he graduates in Modern Literature. It is in this vibrant cultural context that Ugo Nespolo makes his debut in Italian art in the 1960s, a period of great creative fervor marked by the explosion of pop art, conceptual and Arte Povera movements.

Start exploring different expressive media, revisiting Futurism, Dadaism, and observing the influence of American Pop Art. Meet influential personalities of Italian culture such as the philosopher Gianni Vattimo and Edoardo Sanguineti, leader of the Gruppo '63 and the neo-avant-garde. These influences are reflected in his first solo exhibitions, held at the Galleria Il Punto in Turin and the Galleria di Arturo Schwarz in Milan.

Since the Seventies, Ugo Nespolo has extended his talent to cinema, giving life to what will be defined as Cinema of the Artists. These experimental films feature artist friends such as Lucio Fontana, Enrico Baj, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Alighiero Boetti and many others. Some of his cinematic works have been screened in international museums like the Centre Pompidou, the Tate Modern, the Museo Nazionale del Cinema, the Fondazione Prada, and the Biennale di Venezia.

In parallel, Ugo Nespolo begins experimenting with different techniques and materials, from mother-of-pearl to silver, including ebony and ivory. During this period, he also creates the monumental artwork Il Museo, ten meters long, which is exhibited for the first time in 1976.

In the 1980s, the artist spent part of the year in the United States, where the streets, shop windows, and skyscrapers of New York became the protagonists of his paintings. He also began working in the field of applied arts, convinced that the contemporary artist must cross the boundaries of the specific assigned by late Romantic clichés.

From the 1990s onwards, Ugo Nespolo continues to explore new forms of artistic expression. In 1998, he created a ten-meter sculpture for the city of San Benedetto del Tronto, Lavorare Lavorare Lavorare, Preferisco il Rumore del Mare. In 2002, he began working on the decoration of the twenty-six stations of the new Turin Metro. In 2007, he designed the Drappellone for the August Palio in Siena. From 2007 to 2014, Ugo Nespolo became president of the National Museum of Cinema. In 2017, he created the animated series Yo-Yo for Rai Yoyo, which won the First Prize at Cartoons on the Bay. In 2018, he designed the calendar for the National Carabinieri Corps and the following year, the University of Turin awarded him an Honorary Degree in Philosophy. In 2022, the artist signed the image-poster for the fortieth Turin Film Festival.

His career is marked by continuous evolution and the ability to reinvent himself through the experimentation of new techniques and the exploration of various expressive means, making him one of the most influential and recognized artists in the contemporary Italian art scene.