MICHELANGELO PERGHEM GELMI 1911 - 1992
Nelle caricature
dal 1928 circa al 1940 circa
Nei disegni dal 1940 circa al 1945 circa
Nei dipinti dal 1935 circa
al 1945 circa
Nelle caricature degli anni ‘60 e ‘70
Nei dipinti ad olio dal 1945 circa al 1992, e nei disegni (china pennarelli, matite, carboncini acquerelli ecc.) dal 1946 circa al 1992
MICHELANGELO PERGHEM GELMI
Figurative, Surrealist and Iperrealist.
Perghem Gelmi can be defined as a very versatile person, both in his art and his life: a great sportsman, a painter, an engineer, a keen traveller, at times even a poet, in short a “citizen of the world” far from a traditional outlook and free from cultural or political ties. This is reflected both in his artwork and architecture work, which is now collected by the Michelangelo Perghem Gelmi Foundation sited at the MART, Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art of Rovereto.
He was a man of the twentieth century, who was able to interpret manifold influences and events in a free and original way. His life was intense and teeming with experiences both on a human and an artistic level: he shifted from his genial caricatures of the Thirties to high level, professional sport achievements, from his engineering studies to the period at the Accademia Albertina under the guidance of E. Paulucci, from his Impressionist stint in Provence at the beginning of World War 2 to the vibrant charcoal sketches and watercolour landscapes as an prisoner officer at an internment camp (see “From Cannes to Tarnopol”, Manfrini Publishing House, 1975 and the catalogue of the exhibition “Artisti Trentini fra le due guerre. Sofferenza e creatività”, Castel Ivano Incontri, 1975). And then there is the time of his homecoming, his period in Turin, during which he painted landscapes through thick brushstrokes: ‘His use of the painbrush closely resembles the volumes of Cézanne and of Cubist Picasso as well as the dense brushstrokes of Van Gogh” (E.Staudacher). In later years, during his Argentinian stay, his figures, landscapes and architectural constructions veered towards purer, more essential forms.
Back in Italy, he moved towards a surrealist dimension full of imaginative figures, “surrealist games full of magic, allegorical and ironic symbolism recalling Savinio and Magritte, which are based on his will to change the conventional aspects of reality” (E. Staudacher).
At times, he played with traditional art masterpieces such as Leonardo’s Gioconda (“She and I”), Goya’s “Maya desnuda y vestida” and a famous Modigliani’s nude painting, which is disturbed by the intrusive presence of a mysterious “Collector” character. His love for experimentation can be seen in the surrealist and iper-realistic satirical creatures that populate his paintings set in his beloved city of Trento.
Perghem’s last important phase originates from his travels to Mexico, China, Peru and Bolivia, where one can detect “a sort of formal minimalism, which is taking us back to the origins of his art, a research on the meaning of things, or possibly, of life” (M. Scudiero).
In 2003 the Autonomous Province of Trento opened Perghem’s first solo exhibition at Palazzo Trentini in Trento.