Known as much for his abstract church ceilings as for his experiments on canvas, Valentino Vago was an influential Italian contemporary painter who strove for over six decades to eliminate the tangible in favour of pure light.
Read MoreBorn in Barlassina, Italy, Vago apprenticed as a furniture maker, following in his father's footsteps. In 1947, Vago's elder sister enrolled him in the Liceo Artistico di Brera, where he developed a love of colour and painting. After this, he studied painting at the Brera Academy, graduating in 1955. That same year, he took further courses under Italian painter Achille Funi and was invited to exhibit at the Seventh Quadrennial of Art in Rome.
Vago's early works, such as Paesaggio (1956–1957) and Composizione 59 verde (1959) are colourful, expressive, and abstract, with flat, linear, geometric shapes. In 1960, Vago held his first major solo show at Salone Annunciata in Milan.
By the mid-1960s, the artist had become critical of the meaning within his work and sought a new direction, one that established an oeuvre that would last until the artist's death in 2018.
Valentino Vago's seminal works echo Mark Rothko through their large fields of colour and the use of the horizontal line as a threshold between the visible and the invisible. Beyond the canvas, the artist applied his ethereal washes of colour to entire rooms in private villas, galleries, churches, and other spaces.
In the mid-1960s, Vago embarked on a new direction in his work with Linea Nera (Black Line) (1964). He treated the line between blocks of colour not as a visible horizon but as a 'threshold of the breach between the eyes and thoughts.'
In 1964, Vago also began to make his first 'Orizzonti' (Horizons) paintings, oil on canvas works comprising horizontal bands of colour. As in Rothko's works, the division between the bands acts as a portal to infinite depths beyond the canvas.
Throughout the 1970s, Vago's abstract paintings were exhibited internationally, including at the 11th Bienal de São Paulo in 1971, which featured an exhibition room dedicated to the artist.
By the 1980s, Vago was expanding his painting beyond the canvas. In 1979, Vago was commissioned to paint the entrance hall of a new bank branch of the Cassa Rurale e Artigiana di Barlassina. The artist responded to the large white walls in the entrance with works defined by free-floating linear marks and swathes of colour.
In 1980, he was invited to the Palazzo Reale in Milan to paint a set of rooms in tonal scales. In 1982, he painted his first church, covering the vaults and ceiling of San Giulio in Barlassina with blue tonal variations. The artist made a total of 21 church paintings in his long career, with the last, his Paradiso (Paradise) for the ceiling of San Giovanni in Laterano, completed in 2016.
Over the decades, the artist also transformed the interiors of various locations with his tonal variations. These include a temporary intervention in the Villa Burba in Rho near Milan for the exhibition Lo Spazio Ridefinito (1998) and the interior of Luca Tommasi Arte Contemporanea, painted in pinkish hues in 2015 for Vago's solo show Camera Picta.
From 2004 to 2005, black tones became dominant in Vago's paintings, such as the intense R.5 - 51 (Fit eclipsis solis) (2005). Working on the Chiesa di San Giulio Prete in Brescia in 2006, the artist also painted the back of the altar black.
By 2008, Vago's works on canvas had become lighter and less dense as he found 'the light of the invisible.' Characterised by intense light, the paintings feature bright colours thinned down to plain white.
From around 2011, Vago began naming works with the prefix provvisoriamente (provisionally) or P., in order to signify their timeless nature. In 2017, Vago added his own initials instead, and dated the paintings with his birth year, 1931, to infer all his paintings were born with him.
Since his first church painting, Vago has produced many commissioned works for the public. One of the largest of the artist's many church commissions is the decorative scheme for Our Lady of the Rosary Church in Doha, completed in 2008.
Vago was also commissioned to paint a new ward in the San Sebastiano hospital in 2000. The artist painted a faint blue, sky-like ceiling with intermittent lines and strokes of bright pastel colours.
Vago was named Premio Presidente della Repubblica by the Accademia di San Luca in 2012. In 2014, Vago was also made an academician of San Luca.
Of the artists featured in the 2004 edition of the Vatican's theological publication La verità vi farà liberi, Catechismo della Conferenza Episcopale per la vita cristiana 2, Valentino Vago was the only contemporary artist whose artworks were included.
Valentino Vago has been the subject of both solo and group exhibitions.
Solo exhibitions include L'Infinitio: Valentino Vago. Figure e orizzonti, Casa Museo Boschi Di Stefano, Milan (2022); Focus Valentino Vago: Sguardo sulle collezioni, Museo Del Novecento, Milan (2020); The Metrics of the Ascent, Padiglione d'Arte Contemporanea, Milan (1983); L'approdo, Galleria Annunciata, Milan (1969).
Group exhibitions include 100% Italy, Museo Fico, Turin (2018); In Astratto: Abstraction in Italy 1930–1980, Centro d'arte moderna e contemporanea (CAMeC), La Spezia (2012); International Exhibition Of Fine Arts, Belgrade '77, Museum of Contemporary Art, Belgrade (1977); Pittura '70: l'immagine attiva, Casa del Mantegna, Mantua (1970).
The Archivo Valentino Vago website can be found here, and their Instagram can be found here.
Michael Irwin | Ocula | 2022
