Biographical Sketch
Born in Sant’Angelo in Vado (Pesaro and Urbino) on 1932, he is considered one of the primary figures in postwar European sculpture; a ceramist by training, he was a sculptor and also a painter and engraver. After studies at the art school for ceramic decoration in Pesaro, under the guidance of Angelo Biancini, he enrolled at the Faenza Art Institute, which he attended until 1953.
As early as 1952, he began collaborating with Bruno Baratti’s workshop in Pesaro, immediately achieving recognition through winning awards such as the City of Pesaro’s provincial ceramics competition). He graduated in 1953 and soon after began attending the Academy of Fine Arts in Bologna where he attended courses by Pompilio Mandelli, Virgilio Guidi, and Giorgio Morandi. In the mid-1950s he made his first engobed and graffitied terracottas, experimenting with materials such as paper, tar, and sand, and executed works using bricks. It was also during these years that he began to employ stoneware. In 1955 he won a scholarship to Par is where he came into contact with exponents of the CoBrA group; in particular, he became acquainted with the work of Wols, Burri, Julius Bissier, and Germane Richier. In 1956 he married Tina Terenzi. He often travelled from Pesaro to Rome where he met with Gastone Novelli, Emilio Villa, and Gino Marotta. In Bologna he continues to experiences the climate of the Accademia, but the call of Milan, where he meets the Pomodoro brothers , Lucio Fontana, Roberto Sanesi, and Ettore Sottsass, is strong. Also in 1956, at the age of 24, he won the Faenza Prize at the 14th Faenza Competition and the 1st Prize at the National Ceramics Exhibition in Vicenza.
In 1957 he moved to Milan and participated in the Milan Triennale, and in 1958, thanks to Fontana’s interest, exhibited drawings and gratiffied terracottas with Albert Diatò at the Galleria dell’Ariete in Milan. At the end of the 1950s, during an apparent pause in painting production, which he would nevertheless always continue with great tenacity (he would later write: “I drew every day, even though I did not want to show my work”), he began a collaboration with Luigi Massoni for a serial production, in this case, a nature series.
In the 1960s, he held several solo exhibitions (among them in Galleria del Giorno, Milan; Salone Annunciata, Milan; and Galleria Segnapassi, Pesaro) and participated in numerous national and international art exhibitions (among which were the Triennale in Milan; Ostend International Exhibition; Syracuse Museum in New York “XX Ceramic International”; “Keramik+Email aus italien”, Nuremberg; “International Exhibition of Contemporary Ceramic Art”, Tokyo).
With Lucio Fontana he designed the Famiglia Melandri tomb at the Faenza cemetery. These were the years of an intense and vital association with Tancredi, which was abruptly interrupted by the friend’s death in 1965. In 1967 he exhibited at the Salone Annunciata in Milan, and the following year he embraced the climate of protest by actively participating in political unrest. In 1969 he began teaching, first in Cantù, where he met Giorgio Soro and Giuliano Vangi, and then at the State Institute of Monza, where he taught until his death.
In the early 1970s, he resumed some prior projects and formal abstractions, working with papier-mâché, wax, cardboard, sand, cement, gauze, wood, and terracotta. Using various different materials, he passed through and explored new forms and themes without pre-established patterns. These are the years of “Gauzes,” “Spheres,” “Births,” and “Footprints,” and what Valentini himself considered the start of a new artistic period. Numerous participations in group exhibitions in Italy and abroad with awards at the Faenza competitions in 1975 and 1977, at the Musée des Arts Decoratifs in Lausanne in 1976. Significant solo exhibitions include one at Galleria Milano (Milan), where he presented “blue gauzes” or transparent canvases in addition to sculptural works.
In the following years, solo exhibitions follow one another where he almost exclusively used terracotta treated with oxides and minerals, strongly marking the material with symbolic loads. Thus, he presented his works, “Earth, Air, Water, Fire,” “A Navel for Empedocles,” “A Matter for Pythagoras,” “Terranumber, Earth-Wet,” “For Alessio…. “, “The Vase and the Octopus,” “The Face of Endymion and the 28 Faces of Selene,” “The Shadow of Peter Schlemihl,” “The Houses,” “The Pearl Hymn,” “Don Quixote Where the Tale is Told…,” “The Angel and Dionysus,” “The House of Hestia,” “The Annunciation,” “Drift,” “Dialogue,” and “The Angel’s Passage.” In 1982, at the invitation of L. Caramel, he exhibited at the Venice Biennale, and at the Pavilion of Contemporary Art in Milan in 1984. After his death solo exhibitions and publications followed in Italy and abroad.
He died in Vimercate (MB) on December 5, 1985.
