Emilio Tadini (Milan 1927 - 2002)

Emilio Tadini immediately distinguished himself as one of the liveliest and most original voices in the post-World War II cultural debate. In 1947, at just 20 years of age, he made his debut in Elio Vittorini's Politecnico with a small poem, which was followed by an intense critical and theoretical activity on art. In 1963, his first novel, L'armi l'amore, came out, followed by many other publications from 1982 to 1997. Alongside his critical and literary work, he also worked as a painter until the end of the 1950s. In fact, Umberto Eco described him as 'a writer who paints, a painter who writes'. He held his first exhibition in 1961, at the Galleria del Cavallino in Venice. From the outset, Tadini developed his painting in large cycles, constructing the composition according to a technique of superimposing temporal planes, in which memory and reality, tragic and comic interact, continuously playing with each other. He held numerous solo exhibitions abroad: Paris, Stockholm, Brussels, London, Antwerp, the USA and South America. In 1978 and 1982 he was invited to the Venice Biennale. In 1986 he held a large exhibition at the Rotonda della Besana in Milan, where he exhibited a series of canvases that heralded the subsequent cycles of Refugees and that dedicated to Italian Cities. In 1990, he exhibited seven large triptychs at Studio Marconi. Since 1992, he has been a contributor to the Corriere della Sera and in 1997 he was appointed president of the Brera Academy.

In 1999, the Galleria Guastalla organised a personal exhibition and began a direct collaboration with the artist.