Enrico Benaglia biography

Enrico Benaglia is an Italian painter, engraver, sculptor, and set designer. He was born in 1938 in Rome, where he attended Villa Medici, the seat of the French Academy in Rome, and the studios of artists belonging to the Roman School such as Pericle Fazzini, Giovanni Omiccioli, Franco Gentilini and Luigi Montanarini.
In the sixties, encouraged, among others, by artists of the caliber of Vittorio Guzzi and Giovanni Stradone, Enrico Benaglia exhibited for the first time at the Galleria La Vetrata di Roma his paintings rich in originality in aesthetics and poetics.
Immediately after his debut, the artist came into contact with various artistic and intellectual personalities such as Nanni Fabbri, Gabriella Sobrino and Luciano Luisi and simultaneously began an intense exhibition activity both in Italy and abroad.
In these years the artist developed a great interest in lithography and engraving, techniques that would become a permanent part of his expressive mode.
In 1978 Enrico Benaglia began a parallel career as a set designer, staging for Rai the play "Lettere di Gozzano" by Lucio Piccolo. The set designer activity continued throughout the eighties, leading him in 1986 to create costumes and scenes for the theatrical opera "Diario" by Alice James and for "Piccioni" by Nanni Fabbri and Alida Maria Sessa.
During this period the artist consolidated his artistic aesthetics and poetics characterized by an original and symbolic iconography, linked to the fairy tale and mythological world. In '82 he exhibited in Rome his "Hommage à Rimbaud" and five years later "L’Etoile Filante" for the exhibition "Hommage à Granville".
In the nineties Rossella Siligato presented an exhibition of his at the "FIAT Arte" space in Rome.
In 1997, finally, the Port Authority of Civitavecchia with the Municipality and the Regional Council of Lazio organized, at the Michelangelo Fortress of the city, an exhibition with a text by Rolando Alfonso entitled "Gita al Forte".
In 1998 the Abruzzo Region, the Superintendency and the National Museum of Abruzzo dedicated to him at the Castle of L’Aquila the exhibition focused on medieval themes “Il salotto incantato“, presented by Sissi Aslan.
In May 2000, at the gallery L’Indicatore di Roma the unpublished cycle “I quartieri dell’anima“ was presented, accompanied by a homonymous anthology of poems curated by Gabriella Sobrino. The exhibition was presented by Alida Maria Sessa who also curated its exhibition in the subsequent stages of New York, Pescara, Madrid and finally Fondi.
The following year the Municipality of Catania organized a retrospective exhibition gathering the most representative works of the artist's production from 1977 to 2001.
In 2002, in collaboration with Alitalia, he exhibited the cycle "Giardino Segreto", curated by Duccio Trombadori and Alida Maria Sessa. Also with Alitalia he exhibited the canvas "Notte Italiana" at Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris and, a year later, in 2003 the cycle "Vita in Campagna" was exhibited at Brussels airport, Belgium.
In 2004 he won the painting prize of the third edition "Città di Fondi".
In 2005 in Perugia at the Rocca Paolina, the collection "Sogni di Carta" was created, with unpublished works created by the artist in the decade between ’65 and ’75. This was the period that Enrico Benaglia considered crucial for his own formation.
In December 2007 an exhibition of completely unpublished oils and pastels by the master was inaugurated in Chieti, as well as a year later in Milan, with the addition of several sculptures.
In February 2011 an exhibition was inaugurated in Catania, at the Chamber of Commerce, entitled "Splendore del Mediterraneo", later exported to Lugano, Switzerland.