Devalle 1940 - 2013
The first retrospective of Beppe Devalle, hosted at the Mart, presents a protagonist of our times, a great master of Italian painting, through a comprehensive survey of the artist's creative development.
Giuseppe Riccardo "Beppe" Devalle (8 April 1940 – 4 February 2013) was an Italian painter and collagist, acknowledged as one of the most interesting and highly appreciated artists of the last few decades of Italian painting. He always refused the prevailing trends of the day so as to create and distinguish his own individual style.
In 1961, in a Solo Exhibition with Gianluigi Mattia, he exhibits large-scale works at the Circolo degli Artisti.
In 1963 he graduates from Accademia Albertina and is immediately invited to various important exhibits, among which Alternative attuali; L'Aquila; the Tokyo Biennale; and the museum of Ixelles, Brussels.
In 1965 he is a guest of the XXXIII Biennale di Venezia.
In the late sixties Devalle puts aside large-scale works and acrylic colours and begins to work with photomontages, using materials (pictures) taken from fashion magazines.
In 1972 and 1982 he exhibits at the Biennale di Venezia and is guest of the Quadriennale di Roma in 1972 and 1986.
In 1976 he holds the chair of Theory of Perception at the Brera Academy in Milan where he will move in 1979, becoming regular Professor of Painting in 1980.
In 1997 Devalle leaves the Chair of Painting at the Brera Academy and moves to New York, for the first of a long series of journeys to the United States.
In April 2008 the library of the Brera Academy hosts an anthological exhibition showcasing selected collages created between 1962 and 2007.
During the summer of 2008, the Museo Diocesano stages the exhibition You are my destiny, that presents a selection of large-scale canvases of the series For and Beauty and a number of portraits and studies of smaller dimensions. The catalogue of this exhibition (edition Silvana) collects essays by Carlo Bertelli, Paolo Biscottini, Flavio Fergonzi, Maria Mimita Lamberti, Giovanni Romano and Dario Trento.
In 2012, thirteen collages of the Sixties, selected by Flavio Fergonzi, are showcased in the exhibition Beppe Devalle, Collages of the Sixties by the Museo del Novecento.
On 4 February 2013, Beppe Devalle dies in Milan after suffering a long illness.
On 15 May 2013, the Brera Academy commemorated the artist with a conference named L'arte è violenta come la vita ("Art is as violent as life").
organization: Mart - Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art of Trento and Rovereto
