BIOGRAPHY

1947 EUGENIO CORRADI is born on December 8th in Rome.

1958‐1961 Secondary school. Visits to the studio of Italian painter Giovanni Omiccioli in Via Margutta.

1962‐1966 Attends Augusto Righi high school, specializing in scientific studies. In his free time he goes round churches and museums of Rome, draws and begins painting. 1965 first travels abroad to Poland, visits to Cracow and Warsaw. 1966 holds the school‐leaving certificate. Second journey to Poland, sight‐seeing the country through Breslau, Stettin, Danzig and Thorn. Back to Rome, he enters University (Faculty of architecture).

1967 He realizes soon that for him architecture is too little art and much functionality. He gives up the course of architecture and changes to the faculty of economics . He meets Adelheid Hegnauer at the sea‐side.

1968 First visit to Switzerland, to the town of Fribourg. Part‐time job in Rome to finance and keep on his studies. Participation in the students’ movement, presence at various meetings and demonstrations. Distances himself from the movement as it drifts into violence. Frequent visits to Switzerland to see his fiancée.

1974 He graduates with full marks in economic politics, relater professor Federico Caffè. Marries Adelheid Hegnauer in June, wedding in Berne. With no suitable occupation in Italy, he decides moving to Berne, where he is employed in the editorial staff of Italian language at Radio Swiss International.

1975 Growing interest in art and painting, attends to evening classes at the Kunstgewerbeschule of Berne later to the courses of art hard at work. His vocation to painting finally causes him to quit his job at RSI . At the end of the year he rents his first studio at the Morgenstrasse in Berne.

1976 He paints intensively and goes on attending several classes. He improves in the technique of water‐colour at the school of Paul Riniker. He travels to Sardinia, makes sketches and takes notes.

1977 First personal exhibition at the Gallery Szene in Berne with ‘Parallels of Hell’, ink‐ drawings inspired by Dante’s “Divina Commedia”. He meets the writer and psychologist Karl Ledergerber. More exhibitions in the following years, mostly of water‐colours and graphics.

1979 Meets exiled Chilean painter Josè Venturelli, a friend of Pablo Neruda, in Geneva at the inauguration of Venturelli’s exhibition at the Musée Rath. The social subjects of the South‐American artist influence his painting in this period.

1980 Painting tour to Tuscany, province of Siena, village of San Felice. Visits to the castle of Poggibonsi in 1981 and to Mensano in 1982.

1982 At his personal exhibition in Lausanne he is introduced to the journalist and art critic Aldo Spinardi from Turin, who shortly after visits him in Berne. Publication of Spinardi’s article ‘the lyrical expressionism of Eugenio Corradi’ (Turin, November 1983).

1984/85 On a tour in Provence and West Liguria the Corradis discover the medieval village of Apricale near Ventimiglia where they soon find a house. For many years to come they spend a part of the year in Apricale .

1988 Third journey to Silesia, in the mining district of Katowice, in Gliwice and again in Cracow.

1989 and following years. He progressively takes a distance from figurative painting. Continues to exhibit his works. Personal exhibition at Carouge near Geneva at the Gallery Delafontaine.

1991 He visits the retrospective of Nicolas de Staël’s works at the Maeght Foundation in Saint‐Paul‐de‐Vence. De Staël’s broad‐spaced and full‐coloured backgrounds now influence his style.

1992 Exhibition ‘The Call of the Lyrical’ with oil paintings at the Gallery Modus Vivendi in Zurich.

1993 He demands and obtains the Swiss citizenship, but he also retains the Italian one.

1994 Exhibition ‚The Way to Colour‘ in Zurich at the Gallery Edward Baumberger.

1995 Exhibition at the Castello della Lucertola in Apricale of the series of paintings ‘Passagi obligati’ dedicated to the book “Le Città invisibili” (Invisible cities) by Italo Calvino. Catalogue with preface by Letizia Lodi, art historian at the Superintendence of Fine Arts in Genoa.

1996 Exhibition ‘Forme del tempo” (Shapes of Time) at the Gallery l’Orangerie in Neuchâtel, with an introduction of the art historian Patrick‐André Guerretta from Geneva.

1998 ‘Chlorophylls’, sequence of paintings, exhibited at the Gallery Rosengarten in Thun. Introductory speech at the opening night by Peter J. Betts, writer, head of the Cultural Department of the City of Berne. Participation in a group exhibition of Italian artists at the Centro di Studi Italiani in Zurich.

1999 He is mentioned in the international Dictionary of Art Bénézit, published in Paris. In 2000 his name appears also in the Lexicon of Swiss Art, edited by the Institute of Swiss Art in Zurich.

2001 Second exhibition at the castle of Apricale: ‚Dry Land Chronicle‘.

2002 He finishes ‘Codes’, a new series of paintings.

2004 Exhibition of a part of the ‘Codes’ paintings at the Forum Rubigen. Introduction by Beate Engel, art historian.

2005 Working on a new sequence: ‘Inward Landscapes’. Frequent conversations with Bernese musician and composer Simon Hostettler whose studio is located next to his.

2009 Exhibition of a part of ‚Codes‘ at the Kornhausforum in Berne in collaboration with Simon Hostettler, who plays a concert of contemporary music inspired by “Codes” at the opening night. A CD of these compositions is published with small‐ format‐ paintings on the cover titled “Musical Cards”.

2010 Working on a new series of paintings titled ‚Solar Geometries‘.