Umberto Verdirosi

Who is Umberto Verdirosi?

Umberto Verdirosi is a painter, actor, sculptor and poet who was born in Piedmont in northern Italy. He ives in Rome where he has his studio, and another one in Orvieto. His father was a Sicilian and his mother came from eneto. After his classical education he spent his youth in various theatre companies. At 20 he formed a tent theatre with his own company, which he led until 1968 when he stopped dedicating himself to theatre and production and decided to devote his life to painting and sculpting.

His works can be found all over Europe and in the United States, from Canada to Florida, and in New ealand and Australia. He has exhibited at the Export Art in New York, in Miami and Sarasota and in most Italian cities. Alongside his studios he has permanent exhibitions in Rome and Orvieto.

He illustrated Shakespeare's Sonnets in 1980 prefaced by Diego Fabbri, headed by the English text and translated by M. A. Marelli. Forty oil paintings in all. Arnoldo Foà and Vittorio Vettori presented the book "hakespeare by Verdirosi" at the Remo Croce bookshop in Rome. Verdirosi is the author of four other books with texts in English and Italian.

Characters such as Harlequin, Pulcinella and Pierrot often appear in Verdirosi's paintings. These are characters from the commedia dell'arte that used to be a popular form of improvised theatre in Italy where it originated in the 16th century, or even before, and can perhaps be seen as the prototype of Shakespearean comedy.