Salvatore Fiume

He attended the Istituto d'Atre in Urbino, where he studied engraving techniques, before moving to Milan in 1936. Although from a very young age he felt that his greatest vocation was painting, he achieved his first successes as a writer, with the novel entitled "Vita gioconda", written during the Second World War and published in 1943. Three years later his first personal exhibitions took place in Milan, where he presented himself under the pseudonym of a non-existent Spanish painter.

But in 1952 he presents with his real name a new exhibition, where this time it comes out with a more defined and refined artistic personality, exposing works that have a more representative style. Although it is a traditional plant painting, which still presents compositional solutions from the masters of the Avant-garde, it is nevertheless unique for the explicit visionary look of surrealist inspiration.

In 1950 Fiume was present at the Venice Biennale with the Trittico Isole di statue, a pictorial theme on which he would return more often in the following years, applying the formal rigour of the Italian Renaissance and that mystical classicism typical of De Chirico’s Metaphysics. This predisposition for the volumes represented in monumental forms finds maximum expression and completeness in the activity of scenographer: for some years he is engaged with the Teatro alla Scala in Milan, with the Covent Garden in London, the Opera of Rome and the Teatro Massimo in Palermo. In 1960, in continuity with this work of set designer, he exhibited at Milano Palco, a large-scale composition on the theme of opera.

While in 1967 he was commissioned to decorate the mosaic apse of the new basilica of Nazareth, which is followed by other works of great layout, such as frescoes and wall paintings. Salvatore Fiume’s talent and versatility are also expressed as an illustrator for several literary works, writer, poet and playwright, so much so that in 1988 he received an honorary degree in Modern Letters from the University of Palermo.

A versatility that he applies especially when he dedicates himself to sculpture since 1994, using the most different materials, from resin to wicker, from ceramics to bronze, up to the most traditional marble. Examples are the bronze statue for the European Parliament in Strasbourg, the stone groups of the San Raffaele hospitals in Milan and Rome.

In 1995 the Centro Allende in La Spezia dedicated him an exhibition of outdoor sculptures. He died two years later in Canzo, in the province of Como.