Mino Argento facts for kids

Mino Argento (born January 5, 1927) is an Italian painter, mainly depicting abstract themes on canvas and paper.

Life and work

Mino Argento was born in Rome, Italy. He began as an architect, and first exhibited paintings at a 1968 exhibition at Gallery Astrolobio in Rome presented by Marcello Venturoli.

Until his arrival in 1969 in New York City, Argento was a figurative painter. He left Italy because of his unwillingness to continue painting in a figurative manner, which he felt was expected in Europe. America, it seemed to him, offered other possibilities.

Upon moving to New York, Argento presented one of his first one-man exhibitions at the Livingston-Learmonth Gallery in 1974. Argento was the gallery's opening artist. He was also represented in London, England, by Nigel Greenwood beginning in 1974. By 1977 he would be represented by Betty Parsons. Throughout the seventies his work would be presented alongside such other well known artists as Frank Stella, Richard Pousette-Dart, Ronald Davis, Ruth Vollmer, Jack Youngerman, Marino Marini, Giorgio de Chirico and Shusaku Arakawa. Later, in 1983 his work would become part of one of the last shows at the Betty Parsons Gallery after her death in 1982.

Artistic style

In the 1960s Argento worked in oil and canvas collage. Later in the 1970s and 1980s he began to apply an acrylic gesso to prepared canvas, sometimes so thinly brushed that it seemed barely to cover the grayish surface of the canvas. He dealt with the ambiguous subtleties of the interplay of positive-negative space. Argento enjoyed contrasting the hardness and the aridity of penciled lines with sensuous layers of oil. He would build up the white gesso, at times adding oil paint, until it could almost be mistaken for collage. He varied the thickness of drawn lines creating an unusual sensitivity for the weight of various forms. Argento meticulously built up his delicate surfaces, so fragile that every gesture was critical, with layer upon transparent layer of gesso, carefully balancing the tone values of the medium against the intensity of his pencil line. Using oil, acrylic and occasionally graphite in conjunction with the gesso, these high-key paintings are not about "being white" but are essentially concerned with the absence color. His background in architecture pervades his paintings through a sense of geometry.

New York

Mino Argento, New York, 1973

Forty years of Italian art

Group show of Contemporary Italian art. Twenty-eight artists are represented in 50 pieces of sculpture and painting. Especially rewarding is the display of relatively artists: Mino Argento restrained geometry in his painting wars with the infinity of space in the gentle gradations of background color.

Calcagno's 1962 painting, White Heat, presents fluid but difficult surfaces which suggest both Clyfford Still and Franz Kline. Sculpture for the most part looked far more slick that painting in this exhibition, but Gio Pomodoro enormous bronze slabs in Contatti: 1970, gave an authentic sense of excitement and tension. This reviewer was disappointed to discover that almost all the avant-garde of the early 20th century such as Boccocci, Giorgio de Chirico, Marino Marini (sculptor), Giorgio Morandi and Gustavo Foppiani had been on brief loan from private collections.

Fourteen painters

The omission stems from a past failure to relate the work of two groups of artists working on opposite sides of Atlantic without contact or influence upon each other yet both equally free of formulated systems or of constitutes "Schools" And the evidence postulated is to bring together "fourteen painters" each offering different yet complementary spatial concepts. Though limited the range exhibited suffices to evoke a contemporary break both with the geometric language of Minimal Art and with optical art. Space is no longer coherence but coexistence of heterogeneities. A coexistence expressed as clearly in the entire range or canvasses presented, as in individual works. Jean Allemand, Shusaku Arakawa, Mino Argento, Juhana Blomstedt, Ronald Davis, Maxime Defert, Michel Gueranger, Patrick Ireland, Nicholas Krushenick, Barry Le Va, Finn Mickelborg, Philippe Morisson, Georges Noel and Frank Stella. To call this a revival of illusionism, is to forget that such a definition makes sense only when speaking in terms of representation, and not in situations of intensity and of force rather than of form. The simultaneous development of these studies on both sides of the Atlantic unknown even to the painters involved is the best evidence of their necessity as if the modernism of pictorial space was ceasing to be found in reference to flatness, to become an exploration of its own intensities.

Friuli Art and Monuments (FRIAM)

After the 1976 Friuli earthquake, Argento participated with a large group of American artists in donating a large collection of paintings, sculpture, and graphics as a gesture of international solidarity. The creation of the Friuli Art and Monuments (FRIAM)] committee promoted the collection of the works (Project Rebuild). This exhibit offers an important contribution toward the strengthening of Italian-American relations. The works, donated by over a hundred "American Artist to the Earthquake-struck towns of Friuli", are destined to cohabit in a permanent collection.

Exhibitions

Solo

• 1965, Condotti Gallery, Rome, Italy. ("Umanità e Construttivismo di Mino Argento" by Giuseppe Fabbri, Bussola, (February, 1965))
• 1966, Realschule Gallery, Vaduz
• 1968, Galleria Astrolabio, Rome, Crane & Korchin Gallery, Manhasset, New York. ("Mino Argento" presentation by Marcello Venturol.
• 1974, October 28, Meet The Artist, Livingston-Learmonth Gallery, New York City
• 1977, Betty Parsons Gallery, New York City
• 1979, Betty Parsons Gallery, New York City
• 1987, J. P. Natkin Gallery, New York City
• 1988, April Sgro-Riddle Gallery, Los Angeles

Group

• 1965, 1966 Burckardt Gallery, Rome
• 1966, Porfirius Gallery, Rome
• 1968, Guglielmi Galleria, San Benedetto del Tronto, Italy
• 1967, 1968, 1969, 1970 Galeria Astrolabio, Rome
• 1975, 1976 Livingstone-Patricia Learmonth Gallery, New York City
• 1975, Group Exhibition, OK Harris Gallery Mino Argento and Ron Jackson (among others).
• 1977, December 20 – 31, Group Exhibition, Betty Parsons Gallery. Mino Argento, Calvert Coggeshall, Minoru Kawabata, Richard Tuttle, Ruth Vollmer, Robert Yasuda, Helène Aylon and Cleve Gray (among others).
• 1978, December 12 – 30, Group Exhibition, Betty Parsons Gallery. Ruth Vollmer, Mino Argento, Cleve Gray, Calvert Coggeshall, Richard Tuttle. (among others)
• 1978, 2–10 September, Group Exhibition 14, "7 Artistes Americains, 7 Artistes Europeans" Galerie Dorée Michel Gueranger and Maire de Deauville Anne d'Ornano. Casino de Deauville Hall and Galerie Dorée, Deauville, France. Jean Allemand, Shusaku Arakawa, Mino Argento, Juhana Blomstedt, Ronald Davis, Maxime Defert, Michel Gueranger, Patrick Ireland was the alter ego of Brian O'Doherty, Nicholas Krushenick, Barry Le Va, Finn Mickelborg, Philippe Morisson, Georges Noel, Frank Stella.
• 1979–80, December 18 – January 12, Group Exhibition, Betty Parsons Gallery. Mino Argento, Fanny Brennan, Richard Francisco, Richard Tuttle, Ruth Vollmer and Toko Shinoda (among others).
• 1979, Nardin Gallery, New York. (Group show of Contemporary Italian art). Lawrence Calcagno, Giò Pomodoro, Marcello Boccacci, Giorgio de Chirico, Marino Marini (sculptor), Mino Argento, Giorgio Morandi, Gustavo Foppiani. Twenty-eight artists are represented in 50 pieces of sculpture and painting)
• 1980, (Group Exhibition) "Arte Americana Contemporanea". Civici musei e gallerie di storia e arte. Udine, Italy
• 1980, Sneed Gallery, Rockford, Illinois
• 1980, December 9–12, (group show). Betty Parsons Gallery, New York. Mino Argento, Mark Lancaster (artist), Cleve Gray, Richard Tuttle. Minoru Kawabata. (among others).
• 1981, June 2–20, Betty Parsons Gallery, New York. Lee Hall, Calvert Coggeshall, Mino Argento. (among others)
• 1982 Ericson Gallery, New York City
• 1983, May 25 – June 18, "PAINTING", (group show). Betty Parsons Gallery, New York. Mino Argento, Jack Youngerman, David Budd, Calvert Coggeshall, Cleve Gray, Lee Hall, Minoru Kawabata, Richard Pousette-Dart, Leon Polk Smith, Hedda Sterne, Ed Zutrau and Sari Dienes (among others).
• 1983, July, "Group 2". Betty Parsons Gallery. Mino Argento, Kenzo Okada, Richard Francisco, Richard Tuttle, Fanny Brennan, (among others).

List of works

Late 1950s and early 1960s

• La Tigre, (The Tiger) Oil e Collage su Tela, 60x 70 cm, 1968.
• Donna col Drappo Giallo, (Woman with Yellow Drape) 1968. Oil e Collage su Tela.
• Bagnanti, (Bathers) 1968. Oil e Collage su Tela.
• Sul Tappeto Giallo, (The Yellow Carpet) 1968. Oil e Collage su Tela.
• Ragazza Sul Letto, (Girl On Bed) 1968. Oil e Collage su Tela.
• Nudo,(Naked) 1968.
• Figura Giacente, (Lying Figure) 1968. Oil e Collage su Tela.
• Donna Accovacciata, (Woman Squatting) 1968. Private Collection
• Beauty Salon, (Beauty Salon) 1968. Oil e Collage su Tela.
• Donna e Macchina, (Woman and Machine) 1968.
• Donna e Frutta, (Woman and Fruit) 1968.
• Natura Morta, (Still life) 1968.
• Pupazza, (Puppet) 1968. Oil e Collage su Tela.
• Melanzane, (Eggplant) 1968.
• Il Foglio Bianco, (The white paper) 1968, Oil e Collage su Tela.
• Scena di Caccia, (Hunting Scenes)1968.
• Toro al Mattatoio, (Toro at Slaughterhouse) 1968.
• La Monta, (The Mount) 1968.
• Piccolo Toro n.1, (Small Toro No.1) 1968.
• Piccolo Toro n.2, (Little Bull No .2) 1968.
• La grande Bestia, (The Great Beast) 1968. Oil e Collage su Tela.
• Paesaggio, (Landscape) 1968. Oil e Collage su Tela.

Late 1960s and early 1970s

• Senza titolo, 1973 (Untitled, 1973) Acrilico su tela, 127×127
• New York, 1973, Oil Acrylic and Gesso, Grids, Square Pencil Lines. White on White. 50" × 50"
• New York, 1973 #2 Oil, acrylic and gesso, three squares, pencil on canvas. White on White. 50" × 50"
• Untitled, 1976, Acrylic on Canvas, 48" × 60"
• "Untitled", 1977, 48" × 59".
• Untitled, 1977, Acrylic on Canvas, 35¹⁄₂"X 50"
• "Untitled", 1977, 48"x 59".
• Untitled or (New York), 1977, Acrylic on Canvas, 25" × 70".
• "Untitled", 1977, Acrylic/Pencil on Canvas 30"x 30"
• "Untitled", 1978, 14"x 13.3/4"
• Untitled, 1978, 1,27 × 1,02 m.
• Labyrinthus II, 1978, 52"x 68" Oil on Acrylic on Canvas.
• "Untitled", 1979, 49"x 40", Oil on Acrylic on Canvas. Group show, small room. Betty Parsons Gallery New York. June 2–20, 1981.
• Fragments of a Paradox, 1979, Oil and Acrylic on Canvas, 57" × 48".
• Untitled, 1979, Oil and Acrylic on Canvas, 48"x 40".
• Janus Two Headed, 1979.
• Spectrum at 90o, 1979, Oil and Acrylic on Canvas, 49" x 40", group show December 18, 1979 to January, 1980
• Construction of Three Alternatives, 1979, Oil and Acrylic on Canvas, 57" × 48".

1980s and afterward

• Untitled, 1986, Oil on canvas, 36" × 60".
• Inquietudine Geometria, 1987, Oil on Canvas, 52" × 47".