Gabriele Saleri Biography
Gabriele Saleri was born in Bagnolo Mella on 30 October 1927, and from a young age he demonstrated a marked and completely extraordinary artistic ability: painting is in his blood and it was easy for him to represent reality through drawing, at just fourteen he began to create works of great quality which are still appreciable today such as the portraits of family members. As a teenager, in the 1940s, he was invited to participate in numerous local group exhibitions. After having undertaken the activity as a self-taught artist, to improve his skills he subsequently attended the studios of the painters Giuseppe Marengoni, Giuseppe Mozzoni, Emilio Rizzi and Emilio Pasini. After the Second World War, in 1945, he decided to join the exhibition of Brescian artists in the premises of the old post office, creating what can be considered the premises for an intense artistic activity. In fact, he organizes various exhibitions, in which he exhibits portraits, still lifes and landscapes. The latter range from lagoon, Sardinian, Lazio and Tuscan visions to those of "home", such as the Ronchi, Costalunga and the city. Other cities where Saleri painted and was positively criticized around 1950 were Rome, London and Paris, earning him fame as an international artist. However, he never forgets his city, where his exhibitions were in full swing in that period, with personal exhibitions held in 1950, 1953, 1958, 1963, 1966, 1969, 1973, 1976 and 1980. Towards the end of the fifties he took part in the exhibitions of Independent Artists and participated in various prizes in various cities, including: Bergamo, Borgosatollo, Montichiari, Orzinuovi and Milan, where he won the Angelicum purchase prizes in 1955 and 1959; he also painted landscapes for Italian emigrants to America. Much in demand as a portraitist, he did not remain anchored exclusively in Brescia, around the 1960s he arrived in Verona (personal exhibitions in 1960, 1961, 1962, 1964) and Vicenza (personal exhibition in 1960) to portray numerous characters. The same reason drove him twenty years later to Germany, to Karlsruhe, where he depicted Dr. Franz Gurk (previously mayor of the city and president of the regional parliament), a portrait preserved in the local Municipal Gallery. However, works of religious content should not be forgotten: over the years Saleri was called upon to create numerous altarpieces, stained glass windows and other works still visible today in religious buildings, not only in Brescia. Among the many we remember the Sant'Apollonio for the parish church of Lumezzane, the numerous Madonnas, also in the santella (votive shrine) in Via Pisacane, the Pope John XXIII, completed on the tenth anniversary of the death of the Pontiff (1973) preserved in the chapel of the Secretariat for the works of Pope John in via delle Grazie in Brescia. The 1980s began the period of large-scale paintings, including the altarpieces for the church of Sant'Orsola dei Fatebenefratelli with San Riccardo Pampuri, San Giovanni Grande, San Benedetto Menni, Eustachius Kugler, San Giovanni di Dio; Pascual Ferrando Piles and the large painting of [book] Annunciata Cocchetti, founder of the Dorotee nuns of Cemmo, preserved in the Duomo Nuovo of Brescia after its display on the façade of St. Peter's in the Vatican on the occasion of the saint's beatification in 1991.
