Antonio Vangelli Portrait of a girl from around 1950, drawn with chalk on paper, in good condition

Antonio Vangelli Portrait of a Girl from around 1950. Drawn with chalk on paper in good condition.

Antonio Vangelli De Cresci was born in Rome (in 1915, according to the Roman Quadriennale archive) and began his painting career in 1938 under the guidance of his father and brothers. His artistic maturity developed at the “Roman School” from 1943 alongside painters Giulio Turcato and Emilio Vedova. He shared acquaintances with them in Rome during the 1940s, such as Giuseppe Ungaretti, Leonardo Sinisgalli, Cesare Zavattini, Giorgio Caproni, and Carlo Betocchi. He attended the main artists of that era: painters including Pericle Fazzini, Orfeo Tamburi, Toti Scialoja, and Renato Guttuso. During World War II, he participated in the Roman resistance movement as an supporter, together with Giulio Turcato, Mimmo Spadini, Giovanni Omiccioli, Domenico Purificato, and others. He began exhibiting in 1943, participating in the IV National Art Quadriennale with a work titled “Bozzetto”. In 1948, he was among the exhibitors at the V Quadriennale in Rome with a piece called “Landscape”, and at the IX Quadriennale in Rome, inaugurated on November 20, 1965, he exhibited “Rhapsody No. 8 in Red”. That same year, Antonio Vangelli took part in a group exhibition at the “La Saletta” gallery in Frosinone with Vincenzo Ciardo, Antonio Enotrio, Giulio Turcato, Michele Rosa, Pier Carlo Pantieri, and Mario Russo.

From 1945 to 1950, he abandoned Roman landscapes to focus on industrial scenes and themes such as “railways, suburban roads, gas and industrial complexes, river ports, gasometers, various factories, and railway bridges”, with colors drawing from “the sound of intense blue or dark red on brown or black masses…”. Between 1950 and 1952, Vangelli’s works depict fields, scenes, and circus figures. The years 1955-1965 mark a period when he was particularly interested in a cycle of works about the Tower of Babel, galaxies, and the atomic bomb.

He passed away in Rome on December 14, 2003.

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