Alfredo Rapetti Mogol (Italian, 1961- )

acrylic on canvas, signed and dated verso

measures approximately: 19 3/4" W x 2 3/8" D x 19 5/8" H

A Grammy-award-winning songwriter as well as a visual artist, Alfredo Rapetti Mogol views his evocative paintings as bringing together his lifelong passions: writing, images, and music. 

Rapetti was born in Milan in 1961 and his artistic education owed much to the family background, in which an air of music, literature and poetry had been breathed for generations While still very young, Rapetti was introduced by his maternal grandfather, Alfredo De Pedrini, President of the Graphic Arts Association, into the artistic milieu of Milan. His passion for painting began with training at the Milan Cartoon School. He experimented with various styles of painting, resulting in an invitation in 1966 to join the studio of the artists Alessandro Algardi and Mario Arlati, and to share in their pictorial research In the atelier in Via Nota. Rapetti worked intensely for four years, gradually coming to the conviction that he would have to unite his two greatest passions, writing and painting, positing them as visualizations of the mental and psychological process. With the aid of a special technique known as impuntura (stitching), the action of painting is fused with the act of writing, and the words begin to be marked not just on paper, but also on canvas.

Rapetti often inscribes an illegible cursive into the thick base, creating mixed-media compositions that resemble an ancient script or the faint, rhythmic trace of a heartbeat. Coming from a family of musical lyricists, publishers, and graphic artists, and having penned songs for over three decades, Rapetti Mogol has said, “On the one hand we have words for songs, which have a natural automatism; on the other we have words seemingly without logic. I like living my life writing these different kinds of words.”

Once he had found a form of expression congenial to his poetic vision, there was no stopping him A veritable explosion of exhibitions, both solo and collective, have been held since the late 1990s and the artist, as indefatigable as his work, constantly flits between Italy and the rest of the world. 

His most notable exhibitions were held at the Museo della Permanente, Milan, 2002, the Salon d’Automne Paris, Espace Charenton in November 2004, the Mars Contemporary Art Gallery, Moscow, Palazzo Strozzi, Florence, the Riga Foreign Art Museumand the Grand Palais, Paris. 

Among solo shows worth mentioning were those at the Galleria Cà d’Oro in Roma, 2003, the KPMG Foundation of Berlin, in the same year, the Galleria Maretti Arte Monaco in Montecarlo and Villa Olmo, Como, in 2004, L’Albergo delle Povere di Palermo, in 2005, and in the following year at the Certosa di San Lorenzo, Padula, Salerno. In 2009, 80 of his works were exhibited at the Palazzo della Ragione, Mantua In 2010, under the aegis of the De Chirico Foundation, he exhibited in three prestigious US museums and universities, including New York University and the Santa Monica Sculpture Gallery, and he held a one-man-show at the Mudima Foundation in Milan.