Certificate of Authenticity:
Author: Simone Salassa (Montanaro Canavese 1863 - Ivrea 1930)
«Portrait of Girodo Father»
Oil on canvas cm 79 x 98
The painting was exhibited at the Promoter of Fine Arts of Turin,
Exhibition LXIX of 1910 (n°45) and at the Commemorative Exhibition:
«Simone Salassa, painter from Canavese (1863-1930)»
from October 30 to November 10, 1963 at the Olivetti Cultural Center
(Via Cavour 9, Ivrea)
In the lower right, the number 65 demonstrates further exhibition.
Simone Salassa (Montanaro Canavese 1863- Ivrea 1930)
Born in Montanaro Canavese on March 12, 1863, died in Ivrea on October 16, 1930.
From a very poor family, he attended the evening drawing courses of the San Carlo Technical Workers' Schools in Turin and completed his training in the studios of the painters Reffo, Clara and at the evening lessons of the Accademia Albertina.
Author of genre themes, portraits and landscapes, Salassa is a rare signature. His paintings met with particular favor among French and German collectors.
Since his debut at the Turin exhibitions where, in 1898, he exhibited «Sereno in cielo e tempesta nel cuore» (Serene in the sky and storm in the heart) and «Momento di ispirazione» (Moment of inspiration), he presented himself as an original and mature experimenter of the divisionist language, in him characterized by a marked chiaroscuro and a chromatic paste with strong and minute reliefs so as to make the painted surfaces luministically vibrant.
Present at the exhibitions of the Canavese Artistic Society of Ivrea, at the Turin ones until 1926. In 1901, he exhibited at the Venice Biennale: «Poesia autunnale» (Autumnal poetry).
In 1905, he exhibited in Paris and Rome.
In 1906, at the Milan Exhibition, he sent «Cristo e Satana» (Christ and Satan) and «Mattino dalla vetta di Monbarone» (Morning from the summit of Monbarone)
For some years he was a member of the Promotrice di Torino, and in 1902 he presented at that Quadrennial: «Caccia nella palude» (Hunting in the swamp) and «Mesto idillio» (Sad idyll); in 1908 «Lago di Sirio presso Ivrea» (Lake Sirio near Ivrea); «Il castello di Reppolo» (The castle of Reppolo); «Natura ridente» (Smiling nature); «Ritratto di signora» (Portrait of a lady) and six impressions.
In 1914, invited by the Thomms family to organize a personal exhibition in the castle of Mulhouse, following the war events that caused the destruction of the building and, with it, of his sixty canvases, he was deprived of his entire artistic heritage.
He did not recover from that disaster and then adapted to make ends meet by also dedicating himself to portraiture and hagiographic painting, practically concluding the divisionist plant production on the eve of the first world war.
After the war he continued to travel through the Canavese and the Aosta Valley and to paint small landscapes there which retain a veiled memory of the suggestive effects of luminous vibration of his divisionist period.
He dedicated the last years of his existence, dedicated to painting and shy of honors, to teaching art in the capital of Canavese.
Bibliography:
«Simone Salassa: painter from Canavese (1863-1930)»
Commemorative exhibition from October 30 to November 10, 1963
Olivetti Cultural Center Via Cavour 9 Ivrea
«Dictionnaire des peintres sculpteurs dessinateurs et graveurs»
E.Benezit Vol.9 (p.245)
«Dizionario critico e documentario A.M.Comanducci: i pittori italiani dell’800»
Ed. Artisti d’Italia Milano 1934 (p.637)
«I divisionisti piemontesi: da Pelizza a Balla»
Edited by Giuseppe Luigi Marini
Silvana Editoriale
"The value of nineteenth and early twentieth century paintings"
Umberto Allemandi & C.
State of conservation: good
