Mino Argento
| Mino Argento | |
|---|---|
| Born |
January 5, 1927 Rome, Italy |
| Nationality | Italian, American |
| Known for | Painter, Architect |
| Movement | Abstract Expressionist, Lyrical abstraction, Geometric abstraction, Minimal art, Impressionism, collages, Monochrome painting |
Mino Argento (born January 5, 1927) is an Italian painter, mainly depicting abstract themes on canvas and paper.
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.
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 subleties 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.
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