Bologna, 1935

Among the leading figurative artists of the 20th century, Valerio Adami was born in Bologna in 1935. Having moved to Milan after the war, after attending Felice Carena’s atelier and Achille Funi’s courses, he graduated from the Brera Academy of Fine Arts in 1955. In the same year, he made his first trip to Paris, where he came into contact with the painters Wifredo Lam and Roberto Sebastian Matta, with whom he formed a friendship. In 1958 he stayed in London, where he met William Scott and Francis Bacon.

Beginning in the 1960s, he participated in international exhibitions and solo shows, among them in 1968 the Venice Biennale dedicated a solo room to him. He also begins a series of long stays around the world that will take him to London, New York, Cuba, Tokyo, Caracas, Mexico, India, Israel, Scandinavia and Argentina, among others. All of these travels marked Adami’s artistic vision very deeply and allowed him to meet numerous writers, philosophers and artists, with whom he would establish lasting and fruitful ties. The passion for travel will distinguish his entire life.

Influenced by Pop Art, his art developed into a kind of fantastic and ironic narrative characterised by depersonalized interiors and human figures displaced among highly symbolic objects, painted in flat, smooth forms in bold colors bordered by sharp black lines.

Innumerable retrospectives have been dedicated to the artist by international museums, including Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, later transferred to Palazzo Reale, Milan (1985), IVAM- Centre Julio Gonzàlez, Valencia (1990), Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid (1991), Tel Aviv Art Musuem, Tel Aviv (1997), Museo Belles Artes, Buenos Aires (1998), t the Boca Raton Museum of Art, Miami (2010).