Katalog NERONE Violina

Filled by the sacred fire of Art, Nerone feels the unstoppable urge to create, an unexpected
fact for those who know him, who, incredulous, at first do not even believe it is him,
but another artist instead, who paints his pieces. He takes part in the Premio dei Naïfs di
Luzzara’s contest and receives critical acclaim by its patron, Cesare Zavattini, too.
His friendship with Lajolo is essential for Nerone, for the reason that, thanks to him
and his moral support, the artist stops drinking and he dedicates himself exclusively to
painting, banishing the wine demons in the first cycle, composed by 14 extraordinary
pieces, entitled The Via Crucis of the drunks, which he composes in 1977. From these,
many other follow, among which 50 pieces, painted in 1980 and dedicated to Ludovico
Ariosto’s epic poem Orlando Furioso, which I exhibited in 2020 in the Casa del Mantegna
in Mantua, the last exhibition inaugurated by Nerone himself.
Many expositions, awards, and documentaries about his life ensured that Nerone became
well-known both in Italy and abroad: we ought to remember the ‘Award to the
Renowned Artistic Career’ that he received in 1996 from governor G.E. Pataky at the
Metropolitan Museum of Art, in New York.
Nerone isn’t limited to just painting, he also was a sculptor, writer, and poet; in fact,
there are many different novels written by Nerone, many of which are auto-biographies
in which he tells, with raw authenticity, his odyssey.
Certainly a complex character, a force of nature able to reinterpret its own world in virtue
of different artistic languages - from figurative to abstract through informal - with
coherence and , above all, truth.
I am left w ith the memory of afriend since the
years of my youth, whom, with the passing of
years, I was able to appreciate as a great
artist, too.
I wish to congratulate Jakob Kompatscher,
owner of the Hofburg gallery, but also the
collector Susanna Singer, and Mr. Walter
Gasser, who conceived and promoted this
exhibition in memory of the recently deceased
artist. I hope this to be a good omen for a great
anthology in Tyrol, land to which Nerone was
deeply connected.
Augusto Agosta Tota