Memories

Dady Orsi has never sought an alliance with critics. An artist of doing rather than of theory, he has always preferred direct conversation with artists, poets, and intellectuals with whom he has met and who have written about him and his art from time to time. Precisely because of this reluctance, his artistic work has not yet been systematised into a theory. The memoirs and critical reflections collected here are mostly written on the occasion of exhibitions held during the artist’s lifetime, or posthumous recollections and tributes.

The authors of the texts are the politician Amintore Fanfani, with whom the painter shared the experience of fleeing to Switzerland after 8 September 1943; the photographer Federico Patellani, his friend and collaborator, who together with Guido Cadorin encouraged him to exhibit his Sculture Alluvionali in various galleries in 1953.

The glass designer Fulvio Bianconi, with whom he had shared his formative years between Venice and Milan; the creator of decorations and objects Piero Fornasetti, who appreciated him so much that he wanted him, from the mid-1970s, as ‘resident artist’ in his Galleria dei Bibliofili. The poet Raffaele Carrieri, a refined connoisseur and collector of the arts, a reference figure for 20th century art in Italy; the architect Lodovico Meneghetti, with whom the artist had a rich exchange of views on art and creativity from the 1970s onwards. Finally, the poet Miro Silvera, singer of the still lifes painted by the artist in the 1990s and mentor of the operation of historical recovery of his figure.