Michele De Luca, a painter, poet, and teacher who was one of the most highly regarded figures in Italian contemporary art, has passed away after an incurable illness. Born in Pitelli, a village in the province of La Spezia, on May 28, 1954, he maintained a deep connection with his homeland throughout his life. Alongside an intense career in exhibitions and literature, De Luca devoted over thirty years to teaching, training generations of artists at the Academies of Fine Arts in Milan, Sassari, and Florence, before joining, in 2008, the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome, the city where he lived with his wife and daughter.
His artistic exploration took shape in the early 1980s through an abstract language characterized by fields of color traversed by beams of light and energy—a stylistic signature that accompanied him throughout his career. From the very beginning, his work attracted critical attention and was exhibited in major exhibitions dedicated to the emerging figures of Italian art.
In 1987, he was among the artists selected for the GE.MI.TO. exhibition. The New Artistic Generation of Turin’s Industrial Triangle, followed by numerous participations in major exhibitions such as Roma Arte Oggi, Arte a Roma 1980–1989: New Situations and Emergencies, Scritture per l’arte, the Michetti Prize, the Marche Prize, Arte in cattedra, BNL: A Bank for Art Beyond Patronage, Visual Poetry in Europe, and numerous other events dedicated to contemporary art.
Over the years, his work has been studied by scholars and critics, including Enrico Crispolti, who described him as “one of the most authentic forces of the new Italian artistic generation,” recognizing the originality of his artistic exploration and his contribution to the renewal of Italian painting.
His exhibition activity has taken place both in Italy and abroad. In addition to numerous solo exhibitions held in Rome, Genoa, La Spezia, Florence, Livorno, Bologna, Chiavari, Viterbo, and Anacapri, he has participated in international exhibitions in Paris, London, Seoul, Tokyo, the United States, the United Arab Emirates, and Australia, as well as in Germany, Switzerland, and Finland, helping to spread his artistic work beyond Italy’s borders. Fundamental to his success was his first solo exhibition, organized in 1987 at the Break Club gallery in Rome by Ennio Borzi and Mirella Chiesa, which helped introduce his work to the Roman art scene and attract the attention of national critics.
Alongside painting, Michele De Luca has also consistently pursued poetry. His poems, initially published in magazines and anthologies, were later compiled into the collections *Altre realtà* (2008), *Episodi del diluvio* (2015), and *Parvenze* (2017), in which words and images engage in a dialogue that flows seamlessly with his artistic practice.
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| Farewell to Michele De Luca, abstract painter, poet, and professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome |
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