Angelo Savelli

Angelo Savelli (Pizzo Calabro 1911-Milan 1995), following contacts with the artistic milieux of Rome immediately after the Second World War and a stay in Paris in 1948, settled in New York in 1954.
In the 1950s Savelli frequented the Art Club on 10th Street, becoming familiar with the painting of such artists as Robert Motherwell, Ad Reinhardt and Barnett Newman. At the same time he developed a highly spiritual form of art, monochrome, which distanced itself from the expressive intensity of action and gestural painting. From then on, Savelli executed extremely rarefied works with elegant forms that were inspired by an interior need to reach a state of sublime simplicity.
The artist created images free from any figurative elements, seeking to reach the intrinsic nature of things. By eliminating colour and elevating white to the level of absolute truth, his works convey an aesthetic emotion that communicates with profundity and emits universal energy.

Savelli's first exhibition was held in 1957; the following year he had a solo exhibition at the Leo Castelli Gallery, marking the beginning of the most important period of his career. In the 1960s and 1970s the artist made sculptures that, rather like environments, took into account their relationship with space.
He increased his output of graphic works, which, more than any other art form, allowed him to reach a remarkable level of formal refinement. After Savelli's work had been forgotten for decades in Italy, in 1995 one of the rooms in the Italian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale was devoted to him. At the same time as this event, the Museo Pecci in Prato organised the first large retrospective to be held in Italy, which documented all his artistic activity.