Timeline

1935

Valerio Adami was born on the 17th March in Italy. His first drawings in Milan were of ruins; the bombing raids and skies lit up by incendiary flares had left an enduring impression in his early years.

1946 - 1955

Attends the Leo XIII Jesuit College in Milan. Begins painting at the studio of Felice Carena in Venice. Meets Ezra Pound and Oscar Kokoschka. Academy of Brera in Milan for 5 years.

1952

Makes his first trip to Paris where he meets Matta and Wilfredo Lam who become life-long friends.

1956

Makes his first trip to London, where he meets Francis Bacon and William Scott.

1961

Participates at the Italian Artists Exhibition at the Jewish Museum of New York.

1962

Roland Penrose invites him to exhibit at the ICA in London. Marries Camilla. Meets regularly with Jim Dine and Richard Hamilton.

1964

Invited to show his work at the Documenta III in Kassel.

1966

Spends his winter in New York, taking up residence at the Chelsea Hotel. Hosted by Cuba, spends 3 months in Havana.

1968

The Venice Biennale dedicates a room to his work. The catalogue includes a text by his friend Carlos Fuentes, Líneas para Adami. Features in Dada Surrealism and their Heritage at the MOMA in New York.

1969

Stays in Caracas for a major one-man show at the Museo de Bellas Artes. Befriends Octavio Paz in Mexico City.

1970

Retrospective at the Musée d’Art Moderne in Paris. Represented by Galerie Maeght in Paris.

1971

Produces a full-length film Vacanze nel deserto, whose cast includes Camilla, Erró and Dino Buzzati. In Paris, befriends philosopher Jacques Derrida. Designs poster for Glas, which is to become an icon of deconstructionism. Derrida dedicates to his work the essay + R (pas dessus le marché).

1976

First trip to India followed by a long journey through Scandinavia.

1977

Spends a lengthy time in Mexico following an exhibition at the Museo de Arte Moderno in Mexico City. The Israel Museum hosts a retrospective. Spends the summer in Jerusalem. 1980 Takes up residence in the Principality of Monaco. Travels to Greece. Italo Calvino writes Quattro fiabe d’Esopo per Valerio Adami.

1985

Major retrospective at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris. Stops dating his paintings.

1988

The French State commissions a portrait of the composer Pierre Boulez. Also produces a large-scale fresco for the façade of the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris.

1990

Major retrospective at the IVAM Centre Julio Gonzáles in Valencia. Octavio Paz writes La línea narrativa, dedicated to his work.

1992

Makes four large wall paintings for the Park Hyatt Hotel in Tokyo designed by the architect Kenzo Tange. Has a one-man show at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art in Israel.

1996 - 1998

Retrospectives in Florence and in Bochum.

1998

Inauguration of an exhibition at the Museo de Bellas Artes in Buenos Aires. An Italian edition of his notebooks is published. Sets up the Fondazione Europea del Disegno, in Meina, on Lake Maggiore.

2001

Prepares the Opera stage for Der Fliegende Holländer by Richard Wagner. His book Dessiner. La gomme et le crayon, is published by Editions Galilée.

2003

Makes two large wall paintings for the new Mandarin Hotel at Columbus Circus in New York.

Gives a series of lectures in France and Europe on Cézanne, in the painter’s studio in Aix-en-Provence; on Ferdinand Léger at Musée Chagall in Nice; on drawing at the University of Valencia.

2006

Retrospective at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Lisbon.

2008

French philosopher Michel Onfray writes Le chiffre de la peinture. L’œuvre de Valerio Adami.

2009

Invited as ‘master of drawing’ to give a course on the metaphysics of the body during the Schwäbischer Kunstsommer in Irsee (Germany).