Antonio Calderara has been one of the most important artists of the ‘900 with a unique artistic path. One of the few great artists that even if was not part of any artistic movement, he was able to succeed with his unique light paintings appreciated and requested all around the world. A watercolour or a print of Antonio Calderara cannot be appreciated running in front of it but requires to stop in front of it and get lost in its rarified colours and geometric shapes. A path to infinity. Calderara started with a figurative painting arriving after 40 years of work to an abstract way to represent reality through lines, squares and light colours. Calderara was saying that his first paiting is the same as the last one. At a first glance it seems impossible but the landscape is always the lake d’Orta which he used to see everyday from his studio in Vacciago but the way he represented it in 1930 and in 1970 changed completely. In the 30’s was represent as a coloured figurative paiting, in the 70’s it become a “spazio luce” (light space) represented by not more than a line and a square. His studio in Vacciago now is the headquarter of the estate of the artist, the Fondazione Antonio Calderara where are exhibited some of his artworks and his personal collection with artworks of Getulio Alviani, Jesus Rafael Soto, Joseph Albers, Lucio Del Pezzo ed many others.
Initially identified as a painter of realism, later was considered near to the concretist movement represented by Max Bill, Camille Graeser, Richard Paul Lohse and Verena Loewensberg. He put great effort in the watercolour tecnique and in the printmaking expecially in the silkscreen prints, one of his favourite tecniques because with printing he was able to arrive to the rarified coloured he always searched for. In 2018 the MAC museum (Museo di Lissone, Italy) organized an exhibition titled “Momenti e stagioni” (moments and seasons) about the prints of Antonio Calderara with silkscreen prints from the portfolios “Momenti” and “Momenti numero 2” from 1978 (edited by Plura Edizioni, Milano).
Sangallo Fine Art has always put a great effort in searching and proposing Anotnio Calderara’s prints and watercolours. In the section of our gallery dedicated to Calderara, you can find complete portfolios, prints from the portfolio “Momenti numero 2” and some selected watercolours from the 60’s and the 70’s.