An authoritative painter like Giambecchina, Guttuso, Romano, Barbera, Pasqualino Noto, Franchina, he was a Sicilian figurative painter for whom for the first time, after his recent death, he opens his House Museum to the public. The Maestro's laboratory located in Trecastagni in Sicily, a few steps from Catania on the slopes of Etna, was the workshop of the artist from Trecastagni, who lived and worked in the town from 1965 until his death in 2021.
Mario Di Bella, an authoritative Sicilian painter of the 20th century, was an artist of great importance, comparable to prominent figures such as Giambecchina and Guttuso. His figurative art has left an indelible mark on the Sicilian and Italian artistic panorama.
Born in Trecastagni, Mario Di Bella lived and worked from 1965 until his death in his home, which has now been transformed into a museum open to the public. This residence, which for more than fifty years (1965-2020) was his studio and experimental laboratory, saw the creation of almost 5,000 works of art, including drawings, paintings and sculptures.
An authoritative painter like Giambecchina, Guttuso, Romano, Barbera, Pasqualino Noto, Franchina, he was a Sicilian figurative painter for whom for the first time, after his recent death, he opens his House Museum to the public. The Maestro's laboratory located in Trecastagni in Sicily, a few steps from Catania on the slopes of Etna, was the workshop of the artist from Trecastagni, who lived and worked in the town from 1965 until his death in 2021.
In more than fifty years (1965-2021), Mario Di Bella, in fact, used this residence as a studio/home, forge and experimental laboratory, producing a collection that far exceeds 5,000 works of art, including drawings, paintings and sculptures, creating an original kaleidoscope of research that goes from the mid-1950s to the present day. The Foundation dedicated to him and which bears his name, in the context of what happened, has in mind an integrated project which envisages as a continuation, continuation and legacy of the artist, the existence and planning of artist residencies aimed at research and enhance the work and experimentation of emerging national and international artists.
Maestro Di Bella's works are often characterized by a strong sense of observation of reality linked to the desire to reveal his profound perception. His artistic production reflects his incessant experimentation, making a mandate of "Beauty" that his heirs have strongly wanted to transpose and keep alive, giving continuity, in the spirit and focus that the Mario Di Bella Foundation aims to pursue.
After his recent passing, the Master's home was opened to the public, allowing admirers and scholars to immerse themselves in the artist's world. Each room of the house-museum offers an intimate look at the Master's life and creative process, making his commitment and passion for art tangible.
As we were saying, an integrated project involves the existence and planning of artist residencies. This project aims to enhance the research of both national and international emerging artists, offering them a place where they can create and experiment, just like Mario Di Bella did. The life and work of Mario Di Bella represent a precious contribution to the Sicilian and Italian artistic heritage.
His House Museum, in Trecastagni, not only preserves his priceless legacy, but continues to promote creativity and innovation through far-sighted projects, which aim to represent an inspiration for future generations of artists. For those wishing to know more, you can write to the email mdbfoundation.isla@gmail.com
AUTO-BIOGRAPHY IN SUMMARY
Life is an extraordinary journey, a unique and unrepeatable path that each of us takes with different steps. This autobiography tells the journey of Mario Di Bella, a gentle man who has gone through almost a century of history, experiencing intense and formative experiences.
Born in Trecastagni in 1929, Mario takes us with him through the memories of his childhood, the harshness of work in the quarry, the challenges of war, his passion for drawing and painting, up to the present day. Each chapter is a piece that contributes to composing the mosaic of his existence, an authentic and sincere portrait of a man who was able to face adversity with courage and determination.
This writing is not just an autobiography, but a journey through time, a return to the past that allows us to better understand the present. It is an opportunity to reflect on the social and cultural transformations that have marked our country, through the eyes of those who experienced them firsthand.
Mario Di Bella offers us an intimate and personal story, but at the same time universal, because in every experience of him we can recognize a piece of our collective history. His voice joins that of all those who, like him, contributed to building the world we live in today.
I therefore invite the reader to immerse himself in these pages, to let himself be carried away by the flow of Mario's memories, to share with him the joys and difficulties, hopes and disappointments. Because the story of Mario Di Bella is not only his story, but it is also a bit of ours.
Enjoy the reading!
Autobiography written in his own hand two years before his death
I was born in Trecastagni on 12 October 1929, to Salvatore and Domenica Torrisi, at no. 61 in via… today Corso Sicilia, next to the Teatro Comunale. My maternal grandfather Cirino lived across the street, nicknamed "Montalbano", who ran a food shop together with his second wife Giuseppa, given that the first wife, my real grandmother, Anna, had died very young. With his second wife Giuseppa he had a son whom they called Antonino (lava stone craftsman and sculptor). I lived in the old Theater neighborhood for the first ten years of my life, on the side street in front of the Theater as kids we played "ciappéduli" or "màttuli" which were cotton balls sewn into old, dirty socks. During the Christmas period we played with hazelnuts (nuciddi) next to the bench in front of the Theatre; and so we spent most of the day. In the summer, in the evening, we sometimes played sitting in the center of the street under the light of the central lamp without being disturbed because any carter rarely passed by there. From the first to the fourth grade I was with teacher R. Lizio in the old Convent, where next to it there was an old windmill, in ruins, in which today there are the elementary schools, built after the war when I was nine years old. Precisely at that age we moved to Catania for a while, guests of one of my mother's cousins, in Piazza Santo Spirito. Nearby, in Via Coppola, there was the V. Giuffrida school where I attended fifth grade with terrible results. Not long after, my father bought a public business license (children's clothing), a shop that was managed by my mother in Via Garibaldi n° 203-205 where we all went to live, in the meantime my father shuttled between Catania and Trecastagni to work in a quarry he owned behind the small church of the Madonna dell'Aiuto. So I visited the first industrialist in a side street of Piazza Lanza and immediately afterwards in the old convent in Piazza Dante, with negative results, very negative indeed. There was a drawing teacher, a certain D'Angelo, this was the only subject where I went discreetly. After the outbreak of the Second World War, my father rented the quarry in Trecastagni for a period and went to work in Germany, in the meantime my brother Sebastiano worked for a tailor in Via Umberto, a certain Lo Re. My brother Cirino (the pimp ) worked in a grocery store (Recca). My sister Nuccia stayed at home. For about eight months, I was 12-13 years old, I frequented the workshop of the painter Pippo Pappalardo in Via V. Emanuele, the door next to the Archbishopric. During this period (1942-1943) the Americans repeatedly bombed the city of Catania, so my family and I took refuge in Trecastagni, in the house of an aunt of mine called Orazia, my mother's sister, in Via A. Ferrara. For a period I even went to work as a bricklayer with Mario Ferlito, transporting lime and cement with great suffering and suffering because my body was not robust enough for that heavy work. When the Americans landed in Sicily, thinking that things could get worse, my father returned from Germany to reunite with us all. So I stopped working as a bricklayer. My father, having regained possession of his quarry, employed us all there. During the war there were times of great shortage and there was little to eat so my brother Cirino and I spent our days turning the mill built by my father to obtain a few kilos of flour. Not long after, once the English occupation troops had passed, my mother, my sister Nuccia and my brother Sebastiano returned from Trecastagni to Catania and my brother Cirino and I remained with my father in Trecastagni. My brother Cirino worked in the quarry, and I also helped there, carrying (scarce) stones on my shoulders, although my body was not strong enough to handle that type of work. When I was about 16 my parents made me return to Catania and sent me as an apprentice to a tailor where my brother Sebastiano was already employed as a foreman in the Cusumano tailoring shop in Via Etnea in front of the Lo Pò cinema. After a few months my brother Sebastiano opened a tailor's shop on his behalf and I worked there with him, in Via S.S.Trinità at no. 22, Emilio Bellassai and his family lived in the next door, where I spent a lot of the happy time of my youth with several friends . Having turned 20, I left for the military (Sabaudia anti-aircraft artillery school) on 31 January 1951 for service, and was discharged on 22 April 1952. On 16 May 1951 I was admitted to the military hospital in Rome for severe pleurisy, discharged and sent to work for a month. convalescence, then for another 90 days, of which thirty at the Messina hospital before I was fit to return to the body. Then they sent me on leave to vote, and I arrived home in Sicily with a fever, so they admitted me for the umpteenth time for poorly treated pleurisy at the V. Emanuele hospital the 26 May and then transferred on 16 July to the hospital in Messina where I was discharged on 5 September. When I was about 12-13 years old, my father, seeing that I was very passionate about drawing, I don't know who suggested it to him, took me to the painter Rimini, then very well known in Catania, next to Piazza Borgo, where he lived on the ground floor. The first time we went to Maestro Rimini we found him busy painting a still life, a vase of mimosa flowers. He told me that he didn't go to painting school, I showed him my drawings in a notebook and he suggested that I do them from life and that he would see them from time to time, then due to the bombings, we had to evacuate to Trecastagni, I and my family, and it all ended there. After my military discharge I worked as a tailor for a long period, being able to paint and draw more and more rarely. With my father and my brother Cirino we were also interested in road works, in painting I made things from time to time, especially copies. When I stopped working as a contractor, I was about 41 years old, so I began painting with great tenacity full time, producing for entire days, until today - continuously - at the ripe old age of 90.
Mario Di Bella, 2019
Press Kit: Mario Di Bella House Museum
For the first time, after his recent death, the house of the esteemed artist from Trecastagne, Mario Di Bella, opens to the public. This home, which served as both the artist's residence and studio from 1965 until his death, is a treasure trove of creativity and innovation.
Over the course of more than fifty years (1965-2021), Mario Di Bella transformed this house into a laboratory of artistic experimentation, producing a collection of over 5,000 works of art, including drawings, paintings and sculptures. This collection, along with myriad other objects, has created a kaleidoscope of artistic research spanning from the late 1940s to the present day.
With the opening of the House Museum to the public, an integrated project is also underway which involves the creation of artist residencies. These residencies will be dedicated to the research and valorization of the work of emerging artists, providing for the cataloging of new Italian artistic research at the same time as an important work of archiving and cataloging the artist's work. We are working to create a comprehensive archive that will not only document the artistic past, but will also be a point of reference for future design trends. This archive will include a collection of carefully selected artists' portfolios, offering a viewing service that will allow art enthusiasts and industry professionals to explore the work of these artists in detailed detail.
We are also developing a specialized library and video library, where you will be able to access a wide range of content and documentation free of charge. This space will offer a variety of resources, including industry books, art magazines, exhibition catalogues, documentaries and video interviews of and with the artists. This service will allow users to deepen their understanding of contemporary art, study artistic techniques, investigate research and experimentation, and discover the stories behind works of art.
Our goal is to create an accessible and informative platform that serves as a bridge between artists and audiences, promoting understanding and appreciation of art in all its forms. All the artists we have looked at and investigated since the 1990s are known for their significant contributions to the field of contemporary art. They are recognized internationally for their unique and innovative works ranging from painting, sculpture, installations, performance and photography. Many of them have exhibited in major museums and galleries around the world and have received numerous awards for their work. Many of these are known for pushing the boundaries of art, challenging traditional conventions and introducing new ideas and concepts through their works.
The House Museum will become a meeting and intersection place for both national and international artists, creatives and designers, outlining a detailed mapping of an extensive and composite cultural landscape.
Our non-profit organization is dedicated to contemporary art, and is committed to detailing and carefully describing the opportunities, potential and strengths of a diverse cultural landscape. We are committed to telling our relationship with creativity, research, experimentation, and the comparison with the ability to generate and regenerate the present and imagine the future through art.
Our goal is to explore the best creative energies and relate them to the values of a territory rich in history, past and historical memory, using contemporary art as a tool to produce culture.
Orientation and exploration will be the key words through which we will interpret the work carried out to detect the presence of those private institutions which in our country have chosen contemporary art as a tool for producing culture. These institutions promote and support young generations of artists and professionals every day, building and nurturing dialogue with local communities and international networks.
Our research has revealed a widespread and widespread network, which reveals a fundamental and crucial aspect of the Italian contemporary art system. This network is made up of sixty-three foundations, associations and companies which in their offices open to the public continuously offer a complex program focused on exhibitions.
Private non-profit organizations, modeled on the museum rather than the gallery, are intensive spaces that concentrate a complex range of functions in a small and medium size. Their activity constitutes a laboratory of experiments, a large planning and propositional pool that attempts to reconcile resources and innovation, integrating and enriching the public offering. This creates a national circuit that increases the virtuous consumption of cultural tourism, affecting large cities and small towns, historic neighborhoods and suburbs.
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