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, home 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 he exhibits for the first time at the Galleria La Vetrata in Rome 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 part of his expressive modality on a permanent basis.
In 1978 Enrico Benaglia began a parallel career as a set designer, staging the comedy "Lettere di Gozzano" by Lucio Piccolo for Rai. His activity as a set designer continued throughout the eighties, leading him in 1986 to create costumes and sets for the theater work "Diario" by Alice James and for "Piccioni" by Nanni Fabbri and Alida Maria Sessa.
In this period the artist consolidates his artistic aesthetics and poetics which is characterized by an original and symbolic iconography, linked to the fairytale and mythological world. In 1982 he exhibited his "Hommage à Rimbaud" in Rome and five years later "L'Etoile Filante" for the exhibition "Hommage à Granville" .
In the nineties Rossella Siligato presented one of her exhibitions at the "FIAT Arte" space in Rome.
Finally, in 1997, the Port Authority of Civitavecchia with the Municipality and the Regional Council of Lazio organised, at the Michelangelo Fortress in the city, an exhibition with a text by Rolando Alfonso entitled "Trip to the Fort".
In 1998 the Abruzzo Region, the Superintendence and the National Museum of Abruzzo dedicated the exhibition to him in the Castle of L'Aquila, focused on medieval themes "The enchanted living room", presented by Sissi Aslan.
In May 2000, at the L'Indicatore di Roma gallery, the unpublished cycle of "The neighborhoods of the soul" was presented, accompanied by an anthology of poems of the same name curated by Gabriella Sobrino. The exhibition is presented by Alida Maria Sessa who also takes care of the exhibition in the subsequent stages of New York, Pescara, Madrid and finally Fondi.
The following year the Municipality of Catania organized an anthological exhibition which collected the most representative works of the artist's production from 1977 to 2001.
In 2002, in collaboration with Alitalia, he exhibited the cycle "Secret Garden", curated by Duccio Trombadori and Alida Maria Sessa. Again 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 the 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 education.
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, with the title "Splendor of the Mediterranean", then exported to Lugano, Switzerland.