Antonio Sabatelli Biography
Antonio Sabatelli was born in 1922 in Albisola. He was a complete artist, having skills as a painter, sculptor and ceramist, and considered one of the most brilliant exponents of the Italian artistic panorama in the 50s and 60s. Sabatelli signed his works using the stage name "Saba-telli". Since he was a child he showed an interest in clay, and at the age of 14 he began attending Tullio Mazzotti and Bianco to learn. After having trained in his hometown, in 1938 Sabatelli ran away from home and moved to Turin, where he met Persico, Levi and became a pupil of Luigi Spazzapan, the artist he considered the most interesting since he did not exhibit, did not sell paintings and did not follow no ism of his time. In 1940, he moved to Milan, where he became friends with the sculptor Broggini. Over the years, he attended university and studied medicine and architecture. After the end of the Second World War, Sabatelli moved to Paris. Here he frequented artists and writers such as Camus, Caffi, Salvemini and Sartre, and taught ceramics in courses organized by the Italian Cultural Institute. Sabatelli is a great traveler and has visited countries such as Holland, Switzerland, England and Germany. In the 1960s, he returned to Albissola Marina and established a collaboration with the Bianco d'Albisola factories and the Isola Ceramiche of Tonino Tortarolo and Federico Anselmo. These years were the golden age of neo-avant-garde ceramics and Albisola saw the arrival of Lucio Fontana, who lived near Pozzo Garitta. In 1957, the first collective exhibition was inaugurated, bringing together Fontana, Sassu, Fabbri, Reggiani and Siri. It is on this occasion that the logo created and offered to the artists' circle by Antonio Sabatelli is presented. After this exhibition, there have been numerous initiatives and exhibitions that the artist has created. One of his most famous initiatives in Albissola Marina was the exhibition of kites painted by the artists themselves. In 1963, Sabatelli was among the twenty artist-ceramists who contributed to the creation of the Lungomare degli Artisti in Albissola Marina, where one of the polychrome panels was his property. In the same year, Sabatelli participated in the fifth edition of the Albisola Festival. In the following years he created original works in the ovens of the "San Giorgio" Albisola factory. In 1969, thanks to the technical support of Tonino Tortarolo and the commercial action of Angelo Germano, Sabatelli established the "fornogalleria" (laboratory, furnace and art gallery) "La Ruota" in Albissola Mare, starting a production of monotype products of artists and architectural accessories and setting up a space reserved for exhibitions in which works by important Italian and foreign ceramists are placed. This workshop-gallery remained active for only a few years, after which Sabatelli, a restless and angry spirit, abandoned ceramics and retired from artistic activity around the mid-seventies. However, he continued to collaborate with UNESCO and the Paris Film Library, and was the photographer for Vogue magazine.
