AndreaLelario
Andrea Lelario was born in 1965 in Rome, where he attended the Engraving Techniques course taught by Pippo Gambino and Duilio Rossoni at the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome.
In 1990, he obtained a diploma in Decoration under Enzo Frascione and, in the same year, won the ‘Academy of Fine Arts in Rome’ Prize, established by the Director, Cesare Vivaldi.
In 1991, he began teaching Artistic Anatomy at the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome, and continued his career as a senior lecturer in Art Graphics – Engraving Techniques at the
Academies of Fine Arts in Palermo, L’Aquila, Carrara, Sassari, Naples, Macerata, Frosinone and Viterbo; at the latter, he served as Deputy Director in 2005/2006 and 2007/2008.
From 1995 to 1997, he curated the Capranic’Art visual arts exhibition, held at Palazzo Capranica in Rome, and at the same time designed a mosaic for the Rome metro, which was installed at the Numidio Quadrato station. In 1998, he won the Giovani Incisori (Young Engravers) prize, established by the Villa Croce Museum of Contemporary Art in Genoa. In 2003, he was invited to the 14th Rome Quadriennale, whose Naples preview was held at the Palazzo Reale, while in 2005, Minister Letizia Moratti appointed him chair of the selection panel for the AFAM national competition in the Graphic Arts category. In 2007, RAI ArtNews produced a documentary, Artisti al lavoro, about his work as an engraver, and in 2010, he was invited onto the television studio of the same programme to create a work, Genos, live on air. In 2011, he took part in the 54th Venice Biennale. He won the 65th Michetti Prize in 2014. Since 2015, he has been the teaching/disciplinary tutor for ArtLab, a master’s programme at the Tor Vergata University of Rome. His etchings have been selected for the opening ceremonies of several academic years at Tor Vergata University: as a tribute to the President of the Senate, Pietro Grasso (2013/2014 academic year), to the President of the Republic, Sergio Mattarella (2016/2017 academic year) and to the President of the European Parliament, Antonio Tajani (2017/2018 academic year); during these same years, he collaborated with William Kentridge on a lithograph and printmaking project.
He was a member of the Academic Council of the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome from 2016 to 2019.
In 2017, he exhibited a large part of his work in the exhibition Perentoria figura at the Istituto Centrale per la Grafica in Rome.
In 2018, he created the site-specific work for the new Tor Vergata Rectorate, La memoria e i volti. Lo sguardo dell’Università Tor Vergata nei ritratti dei rettori, six copper plates engraved using the drypoint technique and inked.
drypoint and inked. Since 2018, he has participated in numerous exhibitions organised by leading Chinese art academies and institutions. In 2019, he was elected Director of the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome, a position he held until May 2020. Since 2019, he has been Professor Emeritus at the CAFA (Central Academy of Fine Art in Beijing) and Vice-President of the IAPA, the international association of printmakers, which organises one of the world’s largest biennial exhibitions.
In 2020, he chaired the jury for the Carnello Printmaking Prize, which dedicated a solo exhibition to him in the former paper mill in Isola del Liri.
In 2021, he was a member of the scientific committee for the first International Digital Print Art Exhibition Biennial. His works can be found in both public and private collections: in Italy, at the Gabinetto delle Stampe in Bagnacavallo (Ravenna), the Istituto Centrale per la Grafica in Rome, the Achille Bertarelli Print Collection at Palazzo Sforzesco in Milan, and the Gabinetto dei Disegni e delle Stampe at the Uffizi, where a section of 14 of his works is dedicated to him.
Disegni e delle Stampe at the Uffizi, where a section of 14 works is dedicated to him. Abroad, his works can be found in the Print Rooms of Edinburgh and Glasgow.
He is currently a Senior Lecturer in Printmaking Techniques, Art Printmaking and Lithography at the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome.
The aim of the course programme is to conduct targeted research into the various languages of printmaking through the creation of a work of art.
The aim is to develop and guide students’ aesthetic and artistic expressiveness by exploring the analysis of sign expression through the development of printmaking and engraving techniques, both experimental and traditional, and by utilising all available practical and workshop-based working methods in order to complete the work.
The course provides students with an individual research pathway, which includes educational sessions for assessment, discussion and in-depth exploration, with the aim of identifying the processes required to complete their artistic work.
Each student’s graphic design project is agreed upon and reviewed at the start of the academic year.
The techniques taught on the course are as follows:
Intaglio: etching, aquatint, soft-ground, burin, drypoint, mezzotint.
Photoengraving. Digital printing and graphics tablet.
Collagraphy and experimental techniques.
Recommended reading list:
Raccolta del disegno contemporaneo – General Catalogue. Nuova Alfa Editoriale, Bologna, 1984
Lucrezia De Domizio Durini, Il Cappello di feltro Joseph Beuys, Charta editore, Milan, 1998
Gillo Dorfles, Elogio della disarmonia, Garzanti editore, Milan, 1986
G. Guercio, De Dominicis, Raccolta di scritti sull’opera e l’artista, Umberto Allemandi & C., Turin, 2001
Richard Hamilton, New Technology and Printmaking, catalogue of the exhibition at the Alan Cristea Gallery, London, 1998
Martin Heidegger, Il concetto di tempo, Adelphi Edizioni, Milan, 1999
Filiberto Menna, La linea analitica dell’Arte Moderna, Piccola biblioteca Einaudi, Turin, 2001
Gerhard Richter, La pratica quotidiana della Pittura, Postmedia.books, Milan, 2003
Lino Bianchi Barriviera, L’incisione e la stampa originale. Tecniche antiche e moderne, Neri Pozza Editore, Vicenza, 1989
Roland Barthes, L’impero dei segni, Einaudi, Turin, 1984
Roland Barthes, La camera chiara. Nota sulla fotografia, Einaudi, Turin, 1980
Roland Barthes, L’ovvio e l’ottuso, Einaudi, Turin, 1985
Roland Barthes, L’avventura semiologia, Einaudi, Turin, 1991
Roland Barthes, Scritti. Società, testo, comunicazione, Einaudi, Turin, 1998
Walter Benjamin, L’opera d’arte nell’epoca della sua riproducibilità tecnica, Einaudi, Turin, 1966
Paolo Bellini, Dizionario della Stampa d’Arte, Avallardi – Garzanti, Milan 1995
Manlio Brusatin, Storia delle Linee, Einaudi, Turin, 1993
Renato Bruscaglia, Incisione Calcografica e stampa originale d’arte, Quattro Venti, Urbino, 1988
Omar Calabrese, Breve storia della semiotica, dai Presocratici a Hegel, Feltrinelli, Milan, 2003
Jordi Catafal – Clara Oliva, La Gravure, Les Techniques et les procédés de Reproduction en Relief et en creux, Gründ, Paris, 2004
Umberto Eco, Semiotica e filosofia del linguaggio, Einaudi, Turin, 1997
Stefano Liberati, Bibliografia dell’incisione, (1803–2003), Sylvestre Bonnard, Cremona, 2003
Filippo Maggio, La stampa d’arte: incisione, Il Castello, Milan, 2002
Ginevra Mariani, Xilografia. Le tecniche d’Incisione a rilievo, De Luca Editori D’arte, Rome, 2002
Ginevra Mariani, Bulino Puntasecca Maniera Nera. Le tecniche calcografiche d’incisione diretta, Le tecniche calcografiche d’incisione diretta, De Luca Editori D’arte, Rome, 2003
Ginevra Mariani, Litografia Serigrafia. Le tecniche in piano, Le Tecniche in piano, De Luca Editori D’Arte, Rome, 2006
Stefania Massari – Francesco Negri Arnoldi, Arte e scienza dell’incisione. Da Maso Finiguerra a Picasso, Carrocci, Rome, 2000
Guido Strazza, Il gesto e il segno, Apeiron, Rome, 1989
History of lithography:
Invention, development and spread of lithography.
Elements of chemistry for lithography.
Restoration and conservation:
Chemical composition of lithographic stones.
Physical and structural chemical properties of stones.
Chemical properties of materials used in the lithography workshop.
Stone conservation.
Overview of the restoration of lithographic stones.
Intaglio lithography:
Polishing and surface preparation of a stone for intaglio lithography.
Design and preparation of the printing matrix.
Mechanical engraving processes.
Printing:
The process of printing an engraved lithograph using a lithographic press.
Preservation of an engraved lithographic stone.
Lithograph drawn using pastel and/or lithographic ink on granite stone or a granite zinc plate:
Planing and graining of the stones.
Drawing on a granite stone.
Mechanical processes for drawing on stone.
Drawing the zinc-granite matrix.
Transferring a drawing from drawing paper or another medium onto stone or zinc.
Drawing on tracing paper and related considerations.
Erasures and corrections.
Printing from a stone or zinc granito plate drawn in pastel and/or ink.
Preparation for printing:
‘Preparation’ of a lithographic stone.
Second, reinforced ‘preparation’.
Different effects of the ‘preparation’ on zinc and on stone.
Printing process, trial proofs and first copy.
Printing with liquid or paper dampening solutions.
Properties of paper for lithographic use.
The print run of an edition.
Photolithography.
Photomechanical processes for photographic transfer.
General considerations.
Colour lithographic printing:
‘Register marks’.
Register marks and image transfer using a transparent sheet and red earth.
Chromolithography.
Printing from multiple matrices.
Colour printing order.
Printing with two or more colours simultaneously and shading them individually using the same roller.
Unwanted ‘veiling’ in the background, or ‘halos’ in the design.
Printing a white image on a black background.
Drying of prints.
Reading List:
Bellini, P., Dizionario della stampa d’arte, Milan, 1995.
Bianchi Barriviera L., L’incisione e la stampa originale. Tecniche antiche e moderne, Vicenza 1984.
Boscarelli M. E., I primi stabilimenti Litografici in Italia, in Catalogo della Grafica Italiana, No. 15, Milan 1985.
Calabi A., Saggio sulla Litografia. La prima produzione italiana in rapporto a quella degli altri paesi sino 1840, Milan 1958.
Doyen, C., Trattato di Litografia, Turin 1877.
Doyen, C., Manuale sulla Litografia, Milan 1896.
Engelmann, G., Traité Théorique et pratique de Lithographie, Paris, 1839.
Liberati S., Bibliografia dell’incisione. 1803 / 2003, Milan 2004.
Massari, S., Negri Arnoldi, F., Arte e scienza dell’incisione. Da Maso Finiguerra a Picasso, 1992, Rome.
Porzio, D., Tabanelli, R., La Litografia. Duecento anni di storia, arte, tecnica, Milan 1982.
Senefelder, A., Vollständiges Lehrbuch der Steindruckerei, Munich 1818 (English translation, A Complete Course of Lithography, London 1919); (Italian translation, Completo corso di Litagrafia, Naples 1824); (reprint, New York 1968).
Strazza, G., Il gesto e il segno. Tecnica dell’incisione, Milan 1979.
Tedeschi, N., La litografia degli artisti, Verona 1973.
Verga, G., Litografia: teoria e pratica, Milan 1926.
Verga, G., Manuale pratico di Litografia, Milan 1906.