Riccardo LICATA

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Born in Turrin, Italy on 20 December 1929, Riccardo Licata lived with his family for a short period in Paris; they then moved to Rome where he remained until 1945. Since 1946 he has

lived between Venice and Paris.In 1951 he had his first one-man show in Venice. After his studies at an arts high school and at the Venice Academy of Fine Arts, he received a scholarship in 1957 from the French government to experiment with color engraving and new techniques.The same year, he became Gino Severini’s assistant at the Ecole d’Art Italienne in Paris, beginning an impressive career as a teacher

In 1961, he marries Maria Battistella, singer and seacher in music of the Renacimiento. They will have a son, Giovanni. Music will fill his heart and life.

The same year, he starts to teach at the Atalier de mosaïque in Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris.

In 1969, he becomes Professor at La Sorbonne and at the Goetz Academy.

From 1972 until 1992 he is Professor at Ecole Internationale de la gravure expérimentale in Venise and at Ecole Américaine d'Architecture in Fontainebleau

Painter, engraver, mosaicist, sculptor and set designer, he has participated in the biennials of Venice, Sao Paolo in Brazil, Tokyo, Paris, Ljubljana, Alexandria in Egypt, as well as in the Rome Quadrennial and the Milano Triennial.

He has had one-man shows in important cities both in Italy and around the world.

Of particular importance are his large 1990 traveling show in Spain curated by Enzo di Martino and his retrospective exhibition at Venice’s Ca’ Pesaro Museum of Modern Art.

His works are found in museums of modern art in Chicago, Milan, Florence, Mulhouse, New York, Paris, Warsaw, Stockholm, Vienna and, of course, Venice.

His work has been profoundly influenced by regularly attending musical events like those at Teatro la Fenice or the Venice Biennial’s Festival Of Contemporary Music.

In fact, his unmistakable pictorial-graphic writing that began to take shape in the 1950s was inspired by music.

Starting with the materials he uses, the artist always demonstrates the same rigor and expressive purity, and through his complex and original “writing” - a truly personal yet at the same time universal language - he has looked for a new means to depict reality.

He died on 8 février 2014 in Venice.