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 Art High School first and then the Academy of Fine Arts 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 moves briefly to New York where he attends Rothko and Pollock and where he meets Carlo Giulio Argan with whom he begins a relationship of esteem and collaboration. Carlo Argan tells him about the experience of Lucio Fontana whose paintings went beyond the canvas thanks to cuts that the artist made on the canvas itself and challenges him to create paintings that go beyond the canvas without being pierced.
In 1958 Salvatore Emblema returns to Rome and, having few financial resources, begins to paint on a canvas sack, building the frames himself. In preparation for an exhibition in Turin and still well aware of Argan's words, the artist begins to unravel the canvas so that the space behind it shows through; in other words, the detesse making the space behind the canvas come alive. This begins the period of detessitura for which the painter is best known.
In 1969, he is offered the chair of painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome, which the artist, due to his shy nature, refuses, leading him to take refuge in Terzigno where he will remain for the rest of his life.
In 1981, during the artist's exhibition at the Palazzo del Ridotto in Cesena, Giulio Carlo Argan selects some paintings to be displayed at the Galleria degli Uffizi, where they are still kept. In 1982, he participates in the XL Venice Biennale. He continues to exhibit in group shows in Italy and abroad until his death in 2006.