Enrico Benaglia
In 1969 Enrico Benaglia he showed for the first time at the Roman gallery La Vetrata, his debut supported by his fellow artists Purificato and Stradone and the art critic Virgilio Guzzi who admired the dreamlike, surreal realm of his paintings.
He started experimenting with graphic techniques in 1970.
He won the Villa San Giovanni Award in 1972;
in 1978 he exhibited in Osaka and Vienna. In 1982, he showed in Rome at the Saint Louis de France with George de Canino.
He won the City of Avezzano award in 1983. In 1985 the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs selected him for a major exhibition in Yugoslavia. The Umea University in Sweden invited him as an eminent representative of Italian art.
In 1986 he took part in the Stockholm Art Fair, hosted by the Swedish gallery Artgeneral. Also in 1986, in Rome, he designed the sets and costumes for the plays “Alice James” and “Diario,” directed by Nanni Fabbri, and for “Alida Maria Sessa” and “Piccioni,” directed by Riccardo Cucciolla. He already had experience from 1978 with “Lettere di Gozzano,” directed by Giacomo Colli for Rai.
Several exhibitions since the 1990s have given an overview of the artist’s work, including the FIAT Arte space, which showed about 40 of his paintings from 1978–1991, and the Galleria La Vetrata in 1995, which selected a diverse, substantial range of subjects. Noteworthy among other Roman exhibitions was his solo exhibition “I Quartieri dell’Anima,” at the Galleria L’Indettore 2000, and Elogio della Leggerezza at the Galleria Edarcom Europa, (the Secret Garden) in Tallin, Estonia.
In 2002, his largest painting “Notte Italiana” was exhibited at the Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris, in collaboration with Alitaia, and in June 2003, he exhibited the “Vita in Campagna” cycle in the VIP room of the Brussels airport. In the same year, he showed at the Michelangelo Gallery in the Sotto Sopra collective show with Sughi, Saviozzi, and Moro.