Gino Scarpa - L'antigrafico [with original print] - 1974

Gino Scarpa (Venice 1924 - Oslo 2022), The Antigraphic. Urbino, Edizioni Posterula, 1974. With a note by Umbro Apollonio. A copy with an original etching by the Author. Edition of 230 copies on Magnani paper from Pescia, of which two hundred are numbered from 1 to 200 and thirty, out of commerce, from I to XXX. Our copy is numbered 144/200. 21.5 x 15.5 cm, editorial softcover, 39 pages. The etching is signed and numbered by the Author, printed on hand presses at Stamperia Posterula. In excellent condition. Auction without reserve!"} }{ } }} }} } } }```Oops sorry, final should be only JSON. Let's correct. }

Gino Luigi Ettore Scarpa (Venice, November 8, 1924 – Oslo, December 4, 2022) was an Italian painter, sculptor and illustrator who was naturalized as Norwegian.

Biography
Gino Scarpa was born in Venice on November 8, 1924, to Silvio and Linda Gaggio. Gino lived the early years of his life in his hometown, where he studied architecture from 1945 to 1948. After studying architecture, for eight years he worked as a mountain guide in the Dolomites while teaching art history in Bressanone. In 1958 he moved to Copenhagen, where he began to devote himself full-time to artistic activity, eventually exhibiting his works for the first time in Oslo in 1960; in 1964 Scarpa was in Malmö as a student of graphic engraving under the guidance of master Bertil Lundberg[1].

In 1970 Gino moved permanently to Oslo, obtaining Norwegian citizenship eight years later, in 1978[2].

After his first marriage, which took place in 1950 in Venice, he married his secretary Irene Eriksen in 1970. In 1977 he became the first foreign artist to receive the Norwegian state income for artistic merit.

He died in Oslo on December 4, 2022[1].

Stile
The earliest known works by Scarpa date back to 1946, but it was only after moving to Copenhagen that he became a full-time artist. Gino Scarpa's first works were oil paintings in a mixed-media technique, which, at the Oslo exhibition of 1960, drew a tepid reaction from critics, it is believed because they were considered objects foreign to the Norwegian artistic environment.

As his style evolved, he shifted from an apparently casual language to a more methodical and precise approach, introducing into his works new materials such as plastic, polyester, and metals.

From the 1970s onward, the color palette, which until then had been limited to black, gray, white, and red, also acquired warm tones, and Renaissance influences in the color choices became evident.

During this period, Scarpa's interest in the female figure also emerged, drawing particularly on European and Norse mythology and focusing on the sensual and erotic aspects.

In Scarpa's sculpture, he mainly uses steel and aluminum, shaping abstract figures in which the core of the work is movement and dynamism.

From the standpoint of illustrations, however, Scarpa developed a technique in which the motif is embossed on paper, and, with the addition of metal foils, it achieved various light and shadow effects.