ARTISTS

Salvatore
SCARPITTA

Salvatore Scarpitta (New York, 1919 – 2007) arrived in Italy from Los Angeles in 1936, to study at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Roma. He returned definitively to the United States in December 1958. His first solo exhibitions took place in Rome: at Galleria Chiurazzi (1949), Galleria Il Pincio (1951), Galleria La Tartaruga (1955, 1957, 1958), and in Milan at Galleria del Naviglio (1956) and Galleria dell’Ariete (1964). In his 1958 solo show at Galleria La Tartaruga, Scarpitta unveiled a body of work that would not only make him famous, but also form the cornerstone of his subsequent artistic journey: the ‘bendati’ paintings.
The following year, he exhibited these ‘bendati’ paintings at the Leo Castelli Gallery in New York, marking the beginning of a fruitful friendship and working relationship between Leo Castelli and Scarpitta, documented by the long series of solo and group exhibitions Scarpitta participated in over the following decades.
As the artist himself recalls, the meeting with Castelli took place in Rome: “I met Castelli for the first time in Italy in 1957. He came to my studio in Rome, introduced by an Italian painter, Piero Dorazio. He was looking for young artists to include in his new gallery in New York City. Our long friendship began that way. I had wanted to return home to the United States for some time, but I knew that only my work, my sole resource, could take me there, so I watched Leo with apprehension as he wandered through the chaos of my studio. Somewhere among the rolled-up canvases and bindings, he found what he was looking for. With the help of Ileana Sonnabend and Frederick Kiesler, my first New York show at Castelli was organized for January 1959. Returning home after a twelve-year absence was wonderful because it plunged me headfirst into the great arena that New York represents for any artist. I was brimming with the spirit of new beginnings, and here began a new life for me, and from then on, I exhibited with Leo” (1).
EGG WALKER
Year: 1992
Technique: bronzo patinato
Measures: 42 x 11 x 16 cm
In 1961, the exhibition at the Dwan Gallery in Los Angeles saw Scarpitta exhibiting not only his “bende” but also a series of “X-frames,” works conceived as modules that can vary in arrangement and foreshadow the minimalist art that would soon dominate the international scene. In his 1964 solo show at Galleria dell’Ariete in Milan, he exhibited works executed between 1958 and 1963, among which were pieces where the artist incorporated fragments, seat belts, or car parts into the canvas, connecting to his experience and passion for car racing, which were pivotal in his life and art.
In 2005, the Fondazione Mazzotta in Milan presented the general catalog of his works curated by Luigi Sansone (Mazzotta Editore). Among his solo exhibitions, besides those mentioned above, held in the United States and Europe, we recall: Galerie Schmela, Düsseldorf, 1963; Galerie Aujourd’hui – Musée des Beaux-Arts, Brussels, 1964; Galleria dell’Ariete, Milan, 1964; Contemporary Arts Museum of Houston, 1977; Venice Biennale, 1972; Padiglione d’Arte Contemporanea, Milan, 1985; Galleria Niccoli, Parma, 1990; Venice Biennale, 1993; Civica Galleria Renato Guttuso, Bagheria, 1999; Art Car Museum, Houston, 2001; Marianne Boesky Gallery, New York, 2011; Galleria Civica d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Turin, 2012; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington D.C., 2014; Luxembourg & Dayan Gallery, New York, 2016; Contemporary Art Museum, St. Louis, Missouri, 2018; Studio A Invernizzi, Milan, 2021; Galleria Mattia De Luca, Rome, 2024.
Notes
1 – This testimony by Salvatore Scarpitta was first published in “Castelli and his Artists –
Twenty-Five Years,” catalog, Aspen Center for the Visual Arts, Aspen, Colorado, 1982.