Salvatore Fiume, Italy, 1915–1997: "eneide", 15 Lithographs Numbered 603 -999 ; Portfolio

Salvatore Fiume, Italy, 1915–1997: "Eneide", 15 lithographs numbered Year:1989-1990; Portfolio containing 15 photolithographs on hand-made watermark paper, each signed in the margin at the bottom right and numbered at the bottom left. Dimensions: 60 x 80 cm. Edition 603/999. Complete
Salvatore Fiume, born 23 October 1915 and died 3 June 1997, is an Italian painter, sculptor, architect, writer and stage designer. His works are held in many renowned museums such as the Vatican Museums, the Hermitage of Saint Petersburg, the Museum of Modern Art of the City of New York, the Pushkin Museum of Moscow or the Galleria d'arte moderna in Milan.
Salvatore Fiume was born in Comiso, Sicily in 1915. At the age of sixteen, he won a scholarship to study at the Royal Institute for Book Illustration in Urbino, where he learned the techniques of printing from engraving to lithography. He finished his studies at the age of 21 and settled in Milan, where he came into contact with intellectuals and artists such as Salvatore Quasimodo, Dino Buzzati and Raffaele Carrieri.
In 1938, Fiume moved to Ivrée, where he became artistic director of the Tecnica e organizzazione (Technique et Organisation), a cultural magazine sponsored and supervised by Adriano Olivetti . At the same time, he wrote his first successful literary work, the novel Viva Gioconda! (Long live the Mona Lisa!) , published in Milan in 1943 by the publisher Bianchi-Giovini.
In 1946, he left Ivrée to settle in a 19th-century silk mill in Canzo, not far from the city of Como, where he explored the fields of painting, sculpture and architecture.
In 1949, he organized his first official exhibition, which included Isole di statue and Città di statue, at the Galleria Borromini in Milan. The following year, 1950, he was invited to the Venice Biennale to exhibit his triptych Isola di statue (The Island of Statues).
Fiume is interested in Renaissance painting, in particular that of Piero della Francesca and Paolo Uccello. In 1950, he was invited by the architect Gio Ponti to create a canvas of 48 3 meters that will be installed in the first class hall of the liner Andrea Doria, entitled Le leggende d'Italia. In 1949, he worked on a series of ten large paintings, commissioned by the industrialist Bruno Buitoni, entitled Le avventure, le sventure e le glorie dell'antica Perugia, which he completed in 1952.
In 1953, New York Life and Time magazines commissioned him to produce works illustrating an imaginary history, taking place in Manhattan and New York Bay.
In 1962, a hundred photos of Fiume circulated between several German museums, including those of Cologne and Regensburg.
In 1973, the artist went to the Babile Valley in Ethiopia, in collaboration with photographer Walter Mori, where he painted a group of rocks with corrosion-resistant paintings. A large-scale model of some of these rocks was made by Fiume for the great 1974 anthological exhibition at the Royal Palace in Milan. During this event, the Gioconda Africana, now housed in the Vatican Museums, was exhibited for the first time.

18K Gold and Diamond Necklace
Between 1975 and 1977, at the invitation of the Calabrian village of Fiumefreddo Bruzio, Salvatore Fiume exhibited some of his works in the historic center, and painted several walls of the old castle as well as the dome of the chapel of San Rocco. Several exhibitions follow: in 1985 at the Castel Sant'Angelo in Rome; in 1987, the exhibition De Architectura Pingendi exhibition at the Sporting d'Hiver in Monte-Carlo; in 1991, at the Mostra internazionale di architettura in Milan, Palazzo delle Esposizioni; in 1992, at the Medici villa in Rome.

Salvatore Fiume also worked as director of sets and costumes at the Teatro alla Scala in Milan from 1950 to 1960, at the Teatro dell'Opera in Rome and at the Teatro Massimo in Palermo. He has also published several novels and short stories, as well as a comedy, a tragedy, and two collections of poems. Pagine libere (Free Pages), published three years before his death, presents personal comments on life and art. In 1988, his activity as a narrator, poet and playwright earned him an honorary doctorate in Modern Letters from the University of Palermo.
He then tried his hand at sculpture and in 1994 exhibited his works at the Galleria Artesanterasmo in Milan. In the 1940s, Fiume was already interested in materials such as wicker, ceramic, bronze, marble, or resin to sculpt them.
The artist’s large-scale works are now visible in the European Parliament in Strasbourg.
Photos available on request