Dionisiaca. Sketch With A Greek Deity On A Dolphin By Marco Silombria.

Dionisiaca.
Sketch with a Greek deity on a dolphin by Marco Silombria.

Mixed technique on paper, with applications of gold leaf. Hand signed lower right.
Dated 1990. Created by the Italian Pop Art artist Marco Silombria (Savona, 1936-Albissola, 2017): an Italian painter, sculptor, and esteemed advertising graphic designer, who established himself in Turin from the late 1960s. He arrived in Turin in the 1950s, after starting his career with renowned artists such as Emilio Scavanino and Lucio Fontana. He signed several successful advertising campaigns, from those for Gallo rice to the Fiat 127, to posters for the Gruppo Finanziario Tessile. In the 1980s, he transitioned to painting and devoted himself to openly and decidedly homoerotic art, blending elements of new Dadaism and pop art, influenced by artists like Matisse and Piero Manzoni, always in pursuit of the "joie de vivre" and through reinterpretations of Dionysian and Olympic themes of classical art, such as the martyrdom of San Sebastiano. Silombria was also among the animators of F.U.O.R.I., the movement for gay rights created by Angelo Pezzana, and of the Turin Radical Party, also linking his name to the birth of the first homosexual cinema review: "From Sodom to Hollywood".

Always an active gay rights advocate, Silombria was the 'creative mind' behind the first Italian homosexual association, the Fuori!, for which he created graphics and to which he donated paintings and drawings (including the famous Aphrodite in Warhol-Hopper style, which was displayed for years in the hall of the Sandro Penna Foundation).