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 artwork. His life and career have been marked by constant experimentation, transgression, and a personal sense of fun that has characterized his artworks.
He moved to Turin where his father, Libero, ran a business of measuring instruments and technical articles. Here, he attended the Accademia Albertina di Belle Arti, where he earned a diploma in painting, and the University of Turin, where he graduated in Modern Literature. It was in this vibrant cultural context that Ugo Nespolo debuted in Italian artwork in the 1960s, a period of great creative fervor marked by the explosion of pop art, conceptual currents, and poverist movements.
He began exploring different expressive media, revisiting Futurism, Dadaism, and observing the influence of American Pop Art. He met influential figures of Italian culture such as the philosopher Gianni Vattimo and Edoardo Sanguineti, leader of the ‘63 Group 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.
From the 1970s, Ugo Nespolo extended his talent to cinema, creating what would be defined as Cinema of the Artists. These experimental films featured artist friends such as Lucio Fontana, Enrico Baj, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Alighiero Boetti, and many others. Some of his cinematic artworks have been screened in international museums such as the Centre Pompidou, the Tate Modern, the National Museum of Cinema, the Fondazione Prada, and the Venice Biennale.
At the same time, Ugo Nespolo began experimenting with different techniques and materials, from mother-of-pearl to silver, ebony, and ivory. During this period, he also created the monumental artwork The Museum, ten meters long, which was first exhibited 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 applied arts sector, convinced that the contemporary artist must cross the boundaries of the specific assigned by late romantic clichés.
From the 1990s onwards, Ugo Nespolo continued to explore new forms of artistic expression. In 1998, he created a ten-meter sculpture for the city of San Benedetto del Tronto, Work Work Work, I Prefer the Sound of the Sea. 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 served as president of the National Museum of Cinema. In 2017, he created the animation series Yo-Yo for Rai Yoyo, which won the First Prize 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 experimentation with new techniques and the deepening of various expressive media, making him one of the most influential and recognized artists in the contemporary Italian artwork scene.