Timeline
Biography
Giorgio Ascani (Città di Castello, 1926-2008) received the nickname Nuvolo during the Resistance, for his ability to appear and disappear in silence among the Umbrian hills, just as clouds do on mild spring days.
“When I went to Rome to see Burri – Burri who was from Città di Castello and heard me called Nuvolo – he introduced me to his friends as Nuvolo. At that point when I did my first exhibition, I had no choice but to sign it Nuvolo, otherwise no one would have recognised the author”.
1926-1940
1926-1940
Childhood in Città di Castello
Giorgio Ascani was born in Città di Castello on 12 October 1926. He was the fourth of five siblings (Ascanio, Giuseppe, Elvio and Maria Teresa). His parents Vito and Speranza are both employed at Tipo-Litografia Lapi, one of the most important in the city.It was his father who introduced Giorgio to art when, at the age of seven, he asked him to paint the scenery for a small theatre set up in their home in Via del Calcinaro, in the district of San Giacomo.
At the age of thirteen, he enrolled in the Scuola di Avviamento Professionale (vocational training school) but did not complete the course.
1941-1949
1941-1949
The partisan period and meeting Burri
In 1943, after the untimely death of his father, Giorgio began working for the Railways, as a corrector of train timetables on the Arezzo-Fossato di Vico railway line. He also carried out some work for the Church, such as small restorations, drawing plans of church buildings, as well as making banners and the proscenium of the town theatre.In 1944, shortly before he came of age, he enlisted as a partisan and was given the name Nuvolo. Once the war was over, Giorgio returned to his old job, but with the station bombed out and the warehouses half-empty, he soon became unemployed; it was during this period (1949) that Nuvolo first met Burri, an already established artist in Rome, during one of his solo exhibitions at the Galleria dell'Angelo.
1950-1955
1950-1955
The move to Rome and the first solo exhibitions
After their first meeting in Città di Castello, Burri asked Nuvolo to join him in Rome to help him with a work commissioned by the architect Luccichenti. It was 1950 when Nuvolo moved permanently into Burri's studio-home in Via Margutta. During this period, he got to know already esteemed artists such as: Cagli, Capogrossi, Colla, Mannucci, Meo, Rotella. Among the leading figures of post-war Rome, he came into contact with the man of letters Emilio Villa, who was the first to write about his silkscreen works - which had already begun in 1951 - in an article in the magazine “Arti Visive”; Nuvolo collaborated with the magazine from 1954, printing silkscreen reproductions of the covers.In 1955, a few months apart, he was the protagonist of two personal exhibitions, the first at Galleria Le Carrozze in Rome curated by Villa, the second at Galleria Numero in Florence presented by Cagli.
1956-1959
1956-1959
The family and the first exhibitions abroad
In June 1956, Giorgio married Liana in Città di Castello and together they moved to Rome; leaving the small studio in Via Margutta, the young couple went to live in Clivo Rutario. In these years Nuvolo began to collaborate with two important Romen galleries: Trastevere by Topazia Alliata and La Tartaruga by Plinio de Martiis; it was through the latter that Peggy Guggenheim came to know Nuvolo's pictorial work and decided to purchase numerous paintings, some of which were later donated to American museums such as the Fine Art in Atlanta and the Boston Museum of Fine Arts.In 1957, he participated in the group exhibition “Trends in Watercolour Today, Italy - United States” at the Brooklyn Museum in New York, and the following year he exhibited at Gallery One in London in “5 Painters from Rome”. In 1959 he was invited to the itinerant exhibition “Contemporary Italian Drawing and Collage” shown in nine cities in the USA; in this year Nuvolo won the “Sorelle Fontana Painting Prize” competition. In October 1959, his eldest son Piergiorgio was born.
1961-1964
1961-1964
The departure from the galleries and the silkscreen atelier
The 1960s begin with his participation in the group exhibition “De Estorick versameling van moderne italianse kunst” curated by Sandberg at the Stedeljik Museum in Amsterdam.In 1961, relations with Plinio de Martiis and La Tartaruga began to break down; Topazia Alliata remained - for a few more years - Nuvolo's reference gallerist. In this same year, Nuvolo showed his first interest in teaching and proposed a treatise entitled Serigrafia in schools to the Ministry of Education, to explain why it was essential to include this new discipline in the graphic arts and printing institutes.
In October, his second son Paolo was born. In 1962 he exhibited for the first time in a solo show in Germany, at Gallerie Senatore in Stuttgart; the following year he returned to America for “8 Contemporary Artists from Rome” at the Minneapolis Institute of Art.
1965-1970
1965-1970
Work for ENCC and the first teaching post
In 1965 Nuvolo began working for the Ente Nazionale per la Cellulosa e la Carta as designer and director of trade fair stands, in particular those in: Trieste, Foggia, Cagliari.By this time, relations with galleries had ceased, and Nuvolo continued his work with the Atelier of serigraphy and the reproduction of graphic works for Ettore Colla. In these years he began to collaborate with some publishers as head of graphics for art catalogues, for Accademia Editrice he worked on, among others, I cancelli delle fosse ardeatine of Mirko (1968), La Crocifissione of Renato Guttuso (1970) and La Battaglia di San Martino of Corrado Cagli (1971). With Studio Nuvolo he also designed and produced many brochures and leaflets for solo exhibitions of other artists, as well as the silkscreen covers for the quarterly magazine “Carte Segrete”.
The first limited edition works signed by Corrado Cagli and reproduced by Nuvolo in his silkscreen printing atelier in Via Lungotevere Artigiani, 10 in Rome date back to 1967.
In 1969, he won his first professorship at the Vasto Art Institute, before moving first to Foggia and then to Rome.
1971-1984
1971-1984
The Academy of Fine Arts in Perugia and the return to Città di Castello
In 1971, after an absence of almost ten years, Nuvolo exhibited in two solo exhibitions in Rome, the first at the Galleria Piattelli curated by Enrico Crispolti, the second at the Galleria Lo Spazio, in the catalogue illustrious critics: Emilio Villa, Corrado Cagli, Ettore Colla, Enrico Crispolti, Nello Ponente, Cesare Vivaldi and the first text by the young Bruno Corà.By the mid-1970s, Nuvolo had already reproduced limited edition works by: Cagli, Caruso, Conte, Guttuso, Mastroianni, Meo, Napoleone, Rotella and Turcato.
Another important solo exhibition “Nuvolo. Presentazione ciclica delle opere” curated by Corà at Studio Piattelli in Piazza del Gesù in Rome; the following year he won the Chair of Painting at the Pietro Vannucci Academy of Fine Arts in Perugia, of which he became Director a few years later, a post from which he took leave in 1984.
In 1984, Nuvolo left Rome for good to move with his family to Città di Castello, where he also moved his silkscreen printing atelier.
1985-2008
1985-2008
The Multiplo Serigrafico and recent solo exhibitions
With Multiplo Serigrafico, together with his sons, he reproduced graphic works for: Accardi, Bagnoli, Bassiri, Boetti, Burri, Fabro, Kounellis, LeWitt, Manara, Merz, Paolini, Pistoletto, Spalletti, et al.In 1993, the anthological exhibition “Nuvolo la pittura e l’atelier di serigrafia”, curated by Bruno Corà, was held at Rocca Paolina and Palazzo Penna in Perugia and at Palazzo Vitelli in Sant'Egidio in Città di Castello, displaying all the work Nuvolo did on his own and for third parties in forty years of activity.
Between the second half of the 1990s and the early 2000s he took part in group exhibitions curated mainly by Maurizio Calvesi, Bruno Corà, Aldo Iori and Aldo Tagliaferri.
In December 2005, he inaugurated his solo exhibition at the Pinacoteca di Città di Castello, “Nuvolo lo spazio pittorico tra caos e ordine”, curated by Bruno Corà, which presented the artist's entire oeuvre, from the “Serotipie” of 1951 to the “Legni Collages” of 2002.
Nuvolo leaves us on 10 October 2008.
