Serge Belloni (1925-2005) - View Of La Chiesetta Dell'abbazia Della Misericordia Oil Circa 1990

Serge Belloni (1925-2005) - View of the Chiesetta dell'Abbazia della Misericordia oil on cardboard circa 1990

Serge Belloni, nicknamed Le Peintre de Paris, devoted his life as a painter to capturing the face of Paris day after day, in all weathers, and he devoted another part of his life to Venice, showing another face of the Serenissima.

The second focus of his activity was Venice, where he spent several months each year in total solitude, which he considered essential for creative work. His tastes led him to Venice Minor, the oldest part of the city, where he rediscovered the boldness and strength of the first builders who gave the city its soul.

This lovely painting shows a delightful view of the Chiesetta dell'Abbazia della Misericordia, the soothing colour palette an invitation to travel and daydream.
Elegant and decorative oil on board signed lower left Serge Belloni circa 1990.

Sizes unframed: H 8.07 In. - W 10.03 In.
Sizes framed:     H 14.17 In. - W 16.14 In.

In excellent condition, we are showing this painting in its original state, with a charming gilded wooden frame.

Biography:

Serge Belloni, known as The Painter of Paris, is the son of the upholsterer Luigi Belloni and Elvira Belloni née Molinari. He moved to Paris in 1933 where he studied painting at the Ecole supérieure des Beaux-Arts de Paris. He exhibited his paintings from 1946.

First prize of painting in Versailles (1949), Marie Bashkirtseff prize (1952), Silver Medal of the City of Paris, Vermeil Medal of the City of Paris (1980).

Serge Belloni was born in Piacenza, Italy, on February 25, 1925. As a child, he lived in Paris, in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, where his parents had lived for many years. His father, a craftsman, worked as an upholsterer-decorator.

Serge Belloni had to work part-time to pay for his studies at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts; these were difficult years that left their mark. At that time, he became friends with Lucien Moretti and Gérard Blondel.

At a very young age, Serge Belloni showed his work in exhibitions, following a solitary path from the beginning, far from genre groups.

He organized his first exhibition in Paris at the age of 21; from then on he lived solely, and without compromise, from his painting, carrying, as he likes to say, his cross every day. Whatever the weather, he painted "on the spot". Numerous trips to Holland allowed him to study, on the spot, the secrets of the Flemish masters. He worked on the rediscovery of ancient techniques that he would never stop perfecting. He uses the egg painting technique.

Serge Belloni works every day, in all seasons, without ever stopping, as if life was escaping him at every moment. His paintings are in the most important collections: Paris, Milan, Moscow, and New York ...

Serge Belloni died in Menton on October 28, 2005.

Museums:

Carnavalet Museum in Paris where several of these works are kept.
Museum CA' Pesaro in Venice.

Giorgio Gamberini - Italian journalist :

I first met Serge Belloni in the early 50s. A friend we had in common, the editor of the newspaper in Piacenza (the town where Belloni was born), had asked me to get in touch with him. At the time, the artist was preparing an exhibition devoted to Paris and Venice: the third he had presented to a particularly demanding public, that of his adopted city. So I was to meet him, see his latest works and say or rather write whether, in my opinion, they lived up to the promise of the young painter to whom two illustrious poets and a few enlightened amateurs had predicted, a few years earlier, a dazzling future.

The meeting began in a restaurant on the Île Saint-Louis and continued in the small studio at 25, quai d'Anjou (since abandoned by Belloni for the less bohemian but more comfortable studio at 27, quai de Bourbon).

I was won over from the start. First of all by the man who passionately loved all that is beautiful, the generous idealist sensitive to all the sufferings of the world; then, having seen his paintings, by the artist.

In Belloni, the man and the artist are one and the same. At gatherings of friends and at all the social evenings, in the intimacy of his studio and in the streets where he paints in all weathers, in the rare spare time he allows himself and in the midst of his creative work, Serge remains true to himself. If I had to define him in a few words, I'd say: he lives his painting as he lives his life, with courage and simplicity; he is his painting.

He is his painting and his work is a whole. Whether it's his vivid still lifes, his moving portraits, his bouquets of rare luminosity or his admirable landscapes of Paris and beyond.

He is known as ‘the painter of Paris’. We could also call him the painter of the five seasons, the fifth being that of the heart, of poetry in its purest state, of feelings expressed by the sumptuous arc of his palette.

Many of my colleagues have written over the last few years that Serge Belloni does not belong to any particular school, other than that of a job well done. This is true.

For my part, I would add that since the day I first met him, his aim has remained the same: to strive tirelessly and with all his might towards an ideal of perfection.