Artists' portfolio: Claudio Verna, painter at all costs

“….You never see the real picture and nobody sees it or only an extraordinarily intelligent or good person, because when you paint a picture you actually put all your intentions, your desires, your loves into it, then the things that you hate them, but you experience them so personally that you also become a victim of them in some way. And then the context, the time, the moment in which it you do…….” Few words that contain the intimate essence of Claudio's painting Verna which as he himself states “it articulates between the polarities of extreme rigor and intense emotional abandon”. Born in guardiagrele, in the province of Chieti, in 1937,  Claudio Verna dFrom 1942 to 1956 he studied in Umbria, then at the University of Florence, where he graduated with a thesis on "Visual arts in industrial civilization" and where he held his first major exhibitions. In 1961 he arrived in Rome. For a few years he renounced exhibitions to experiment and define in total autonomy the thought and tools of his research. In 1967 he returned to exhibiting, now definitively convinced of the "ancient and indispensable" reasons for painting. It was the period of the so-called "Analytical Painting", aimed at a reflection on making art today and on the relationship with the modern tradition.

“The experience of Analytical painting – says the artist in an interview – it was really interesting but as a movement it was very different from the others and I often feel the need to clarify this experience because I am unable to consider the Analytical painting as a group. All the movements that arose in Italy, or in other countries in the last century, always arose from a very homogeneous group that often lived in the same city. The Transavantgarde was essentially born in Rome and everyone frequented each other, so Arte Povera was formed in Turin, Futurism in Milan. The fundamental thing is that we didn't live in the same city, but we were fellow travelers who met almost by chance. Griffa and Gastini they were in Turin, Arico, Olivieri and Pinelli in Milan, Guarneri and Masi in Florence, I, What?, Morales and Battaglia worked in Rome, Zappettini in Genoa. There was no center that acted as a catalyst, there was no place where we met to talk. This meant that everyone continued their experience independently. Sure there have been some tangencies between us, and there obviously have been notice. When I found myself painting in the sixties I saw that the art world was going in other directions, so I desperately looked for someone who shared my research. Here in Rome I found Battaglia e Morales. However, we felt that the same experiences were also developing in other cities. The opportunity to get to know the work of others was given to me by an invitation to the exhibitions of Griffa e Gastini in Florence. We were already at the end of the sixties and driven by curiosity I went to see how things were. The same was with Battaglia in Rome. He came to one of my exhibitions and he said to me: 'You know I paint too, why don't we see each other?'. An experience born almost by chance. Everyone was looking for companions to deal with. But not talking and not seeing each other every day meant that in reality everyone cultivated the experience of him enough on his behalf. We then did exhibitions together and of course we saw and frequented each other, however there was always a lack of a coagulating element, or a critic who kept us in touch, a city that hosted us, exhibitions that lasted longer than an inauguration to talk about”.

What united them was a common feeling, the willingness to react to the dictates supported by Conceptual Art who, proposing the definitive abandonment of any representational fiction, considered the medium of painting as absolutely outdated. A reaction that started, not surprisingly, really from painting to which these artists approached, as Claudio explained Verna back in 1973, freeing it "from its traditional attributes which are symbolic, autobiographical, literary and metaphorical meanings". Thus coming to apply that to painting same analyticity that conceptual artists used to investigate, from an aesthetic point of view, other aspects of reality. 

“When painting was put into crisis, indeed denied – he continues Verna – there was a need to get out of the picture. I, despite having experienced it real space, I decided to stay in the painting, to work in the virtual space of the canvas. I didn't look for a reset, I started again by placing one brick on another and made paintings of a single colour. In the '68, '69, '70s, I painted with a single color because if I spread a coat of color on one side of the same surface and superimposed three on the other, I created a triple order of relationships: light-dark, shiny-matt, hot-cold; playing on a single color I started from an elementary base. What was Griffa doing? that is close to me culturally and theoretically? he would take a canvas and make rods on it like i children, he too started all over again: he didn't use a single color but restarted from an elementary gesture. It was about 'restarting painting' with elementary signs, like traces of your history".

“For him – wrote the critic Giovanni Maria in 1998 Accame – the paintra coincides and has always coincided with color. Expressed with articulated and regulated brightness or made up of a restless ororganization sign, the color, over the years, remains that center which radiates from the bottom to the surface, which absorbs all the artist's attention, in an inexhaustible relationship, made up of action and reflection”. And for Claudius Verna, "investigating the tools of painting is still fundamental" as he has demonstrated with his artistic production over the years.

Invited to the Venice Biennale in 1970 and 1980, the artist lives and works in Rome. Over the course of his career he has achieved various recognitions, among the most important: in 2008 the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei awarded him the “Antonio Feltrinelli” prize for painting and he was nominated National Academician of San Luca. In 2010 the catalog raisonné of his work edited by Volker W. Closing time and Marco mean, for Silvana Editoriale.

Activities exhibition 

After the debut at the Galleria Numero in Florence in 1960, there are over one hundred solo shows set up in Italy and abroad, including: Studio Arco d'Alibert, Rome, 1968; Venice Biennale, 1970 and 1980; Galleria dell'Ariete, Milan, 1970; Gallery Martano, Turin, 1970; Gallery Editalia (then Edeurope), Rome, 1971, 1995 and 2003; Gallery M, Bochum, 1972; Galleria La Polena, Genoa, 1973 and 1979; Galleria del Milione, Milan, 1973, 1976 and 1979; Studio La Città, Verona, 1975 and 1978; Galleria La Bertesca, Genoa, 1976 and 1977; Dusseldorf, 1976; Gallery Arnesen, Copenhagen, 1977; Gallery Marlborough, Rome, 1977; Gallery artline, TheHaag, 1979; Studio Marconi, Milan, 1983; Gallery Bambaya, Busto Arsizio, 1983 and 1998; Gallery Corraini, Mantua, 1983 and 1987; Palazzo dei Leoni, Messina, 1986; Machiavelli's house, S. Andrand to in Percussin, 1986; Studio Mara Coccia, Rome, 1986, 1988, 1991, 2002 and 2008; Study Ghiglione, Genoa, 1987; Gallery Moron, Milan, 1987 and 1995; Westend Gallery, Frankfurt, 1989, 1997 and 2002; Galleria Fumagalli, Bergamo, 1993 and 1998; Laboratory Museum of Contemporary Art, University of Rome, 1999; Building I murmur, Donnalucata, 2001; Galleria Giulia, Rome, 2001; Spazio Annunciata, Milan, 2001; Palazzo Chigi, Viterbo, 2003; Gallery Varart, Florence, 2006; Fioretto Gallery, Padua, 2007; Foundation Zappettini, Milan, 2008; Art Research Gallery, Rome, 2009; Gallery Emmeotto, Rome, 2009; Amphitheater Art, Padua, 2010; Progettoarte-elm Gallery, Milan, 2011; Mara Coccia contemporary art, Rome, 2011; Monitor Gallery, Rome, 2013; Monitor Gallery New York 2014; Gallery Marc selwyn Fine Art, Los Angeles, 2015; Gallery Mazzoleni, Turin, 2017; Cardi Gallery London, 2018; MAG Riva del Garda, 2018; Galleria Cardi, Milan 2018; Monitor Gallery, Rome, 2018.

Presence in museums e in collections public funtains e private

bonn, Art museum
Stuttgart, Art museum
Hanover, sprinkles Museum
rotterdam, Museum Boymans van Beuningen
Amsterdam, Foundation Stuyvesant
Scopie, Museum of Contemporary Art
Banja Luka, Museum of Modern Art
Rome, MACRO – Museum of Contemporary Art
Rome, National Academy of San Luca
Rome, Farnesina Collection, MAE, Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Milan, Museo del Novecento
Turin, GAM, Civic Gallery of Modern Art
Bologna, Municipal Art Gallery
Genoa, Villa Croce Museum of Contemporary Art
Chiavari, Foundation Zappettini
Verona, Palazzo Forti Museum
Rovereto, MART, Museum of Modern Art e Contemp. of Trento and Rovereto
Liss, Civic Museum
I wander of Ameno, Museum of the Antonio and Carmela Foundation boiler
Monza, Municipal Museum
Modena, Civic Gallery
Parma, CSAC, Study Center and Archive of Communication
Ferrara, Civic Galleries of Modern and Contemporary Art, Palazzo Massari
Pieve di Cento, Museum G. Bargellini
Rovigo, Concordi Academy
Salò, Civic Drawing Collection
Conegliano, Municipal Gallery, Palace Sarcinelli
Ravenna, MAR, City Art Museum, Loggetta Lombard
Suzzara, Suzzara Prize Museum Gallery
Gallarate, Civic Gallery of Modern Art
Livorno, Giovanni Fattori Civic Museum
L'Aquila, National Museum of Abruzzo
Pescara, Genti d'Abruzzo Museum Foundation
Francavilla al mare, Museum Michetti
Chieti, Barella Museum
Nocciano, Museum of contemporary artists from Abruzzo
Spoleto, Civic Gallery of Modern Art, Palace Collicula
Crotone, MACK, Museum of Contemporary Art
Cagliari, Municipal Gallery of Modern Art
Erice, Museum of Salerniana
Gibellina, Civic Museum of Contemporary Art
Marsala, City of Marsala Museum

Transfer market: la recovery slow ma constant of Painting Analytics

After years of flat calm, as of 2014 the market for artists' patrol of the Analytical painting has begun to gain strength, achieving a slow but steady growth. Initially they were the ones to pull the sprint George Griffa and Pino Pinelli (already treated previously in the Borsino degli artists) who among the analysts already boasted a presence on the international market (Griffa had joined the stable of the American Casey Kaplan and Pinelli in those of Pearl Lamof Hong Kong, Shanghai and Singapore and of The Buck Gallery, with offices in Saint Paul de Vence and New York). Claudio for a couple of years Verna has fully entered the leading group, also thanks to its entry into two international galleries: Cardi with offices in Milan and London and Monitor in Rome and New York which, in addition to exhibiting it with good success in their stands at the fairs in half the world have dedicated some personal exhibitions to him in their galleries.

“In London we had an excellent response to Carlo's exhibition Verna which has raised interest in the artist also at an international level”, explains Edward Osculati, director of the Cardi Gallery. “In Milan the inauguration went very well with an excellent turnout of visitors and collectors. The intention of the gallery is to continue promoting Claudio's work Verna and show it at the national and international fairs in which the gallery participates every year to make its work even more known in the world. As you know, the gallery wants to promote, among other things, Italian artists who began their research after the Second World War and Verna it fits well into the itinerary of the Cardi gallery”.

“We work with Claudio Verna since 2013. After so many years spent working with young artists, mostly related to my generation, I felt the need to start working with artists who represented a part of our history and Claudio Verna - says Paula Capata, owner of the Monitor Gallery – it is fundamental in the adventure of Italian painting from the 50s to today. Claudio was the first of a series of artists born in the 30s that the gallery began to deal with. Over time we have given our small contribution - small if you think of the extraordinary history and career of Verna- exhibiting it in the United States, in Paris and in Basel, with the participation in various international fairs”. From the primary market to auctions, where – second Artprice – in 2017 Verna it had a turnover of almost 160 thousand euros with a radically decreased percentage of unsold items compared to previous years.

Gallery: currently Caudio Verna works with the Cardi gallery with offices in Milan and London where during 2018 staged two solo exhibitions of the artist and with Monitor of Rome and New York. However, his works can also be found in leading Italian galleries.

Pricing: the artist's recent production can be purchased in the gallery with prices ranging within a range ranging from 5 to 20 euros, depending on the size and quality of the work. The "historical" works of the late 60s and 70s require an investment that is on average 30-40% higher.

TOP price in it: "Cosmos 2A”,  an oil on canvas made in 1967 of 150×170 cm. changed hands for 16.250 euros (including royalties) from Dorotheum in Vienna in June 2017. In December 2014, “Red”, 1968/70 acrylic on canvas 150×150 cm. 15.500 euros was sold by Meeting Art in Vercelli.