By Roberto Lauro
Located in Surfside, FL
Oil Painting on canvas
Hand signed to lower right Lauro.
Provenance: Eleonore Austerer Gallery, San Francisco, CA
Work Size: 39.5 x 39.5 in. framed 44 X 44 inches.
Roberto Lauro is a British-Swiss Post War & Contemporary artist who was born in 1932.
Roberto Lauro was born in 1932 in Gorey Harbor on the island of Jersey (Great Britain) the son of a Swiss mother, Rosa Ramseier, from Oberdiessbach / Emmental, Switzerland, and and Italian father Innocenzo Roberto Lauro, born in Mondovi, Italy. In 1941 he moved to Switzerland with his mother. 1949-1953 he lived in Gunten (Switzerland) where he did an Apprenticeship as a lithograph and offset printer and graphic designer in Thun. There he was introduced to the color theory of Johannes Itten by Hermann Oberli at the Bern School of Applied Arts. From 1953 to 1955 he worked as a fine art printer in Norway where he was influenced by the color theory of Edvard Munch. These works bears the influence of Russian artist Andre Lanskoy, Tachisme and the Cobra artists Karel Appel, Constant, Corneille, Christian Dotremont, Asger Jorn, and Joseph Noiret.
In 1955-1956 he worked as an offset printer in Amsterdam (Netherlands). Visit to the Instituut voor Kunstnijverheidsonderwijs. In 1957 he returned to Gunten, Switzerland. Where he started working in printmaking and and oil painting. He resumed his studies at the Bern School of Applied Arts. He was greatly impacted and influenced by abstract art on the occasion of a large Paul KIee exhibition. In 1958 he moved to Zurich where he worked part-time work as an offset copyist; fulfilling graphic orders for advertising agencies. In 1962 he took his final examination as graphic designer at the Zurich School of Applied Arts. In 1980 he begins his development of three-dimensional picture objects, Sculpture, detachment from the canvas, using metal as a support and play space for light and color. By 1981 he has turned full time to fine art. He spends the next years growing and developing his considerable talent. Inspired by classical music, the rhythm, mood and lightness of which form the basis for the large swings and loops of his colorfully lacquered metal and blown glass sculptures. These are "pensieri", thought sketches that capture the emotions in countless versions. There is something dance-like about his rotating sculptures. Everything becomes music and the rhythm of colors. In 1988, after exhibitions in Europe, he has his first exhibitions in Atlanta and San Francisco (USA), In 1989 he does his first glass and metal sculptures at the Roberto Niederer glassworks, Hergiswil (Switzerland). In 1992 has a retrospective exhibition in the Tan Gallery, Zurich, and the Eleonore Austerer Gallery, San Francisco. They Publish a catalogue raisonne, Eine Retrospektive, covering a 45 year career. In 1993 he creates A Retrospective, a unique sculpture in a table top form that contains his catalogue raisonne and an original lithograph.
1993–1995 he begins work on a number of large scale public outdoor commissions, including Light Columns for a Bank building, and a commission of a sculpture-fountain in Oetwil am See. In 2001 he creates a wall sculpture entitled "Color Poems of the Yearly Cycle. A linen bound book enclosed in a unique plexi display with a one - of a - kind metal and glass sculpture,containing 12 linocuts each printed in colors and signed.
Roberto Lauro's sculptural work work is spontaneous and loaded with energy. The furrows, rifts, cracks and scars in the metal allow light to enter; it is then reflected back by the glass. His work is a clear statement of our times, uniting the intellect and the heart in search of the spiritual. Like the interplay of light and shadow, his sculpture combines fragile, transparent glass with solid, heavy iron. These colorful and luminous sculptures convey a powerful presence and emit vibrant positive energy. With their jagged exteriors and translucent cores, the spectacular sculptures created by the synergy of metal and glass are powerful - yet fragile. Lauro has created and mastered his own idiom and proven that through the artist sheer will and vision, seemingly incompatible materials such as iron and glass can indeed be combined. In 2004 he has an anniversary exhibition Light and Color, Love of Life on the island of birth, Jersey. Ceramic works (raku with glass inclusions). Roberto Lauro's works have been shown in numerous exhibitions in Europe and the USA around the world, and he has also realized projects such as "KUNST AM BAU" in public spaces and for industry. He lives and works in Switzerland.
Select Exhibitions
Eleonore Austerer Gallery, Palm Desert
ART IN THE FRAME FOUNDATION: The Harbour Gallery, Isle of Jersey
Galerie fur Gegenwartskunst,, Bonstetten, Switzerland
Galerie Annamarie Anderson, Zurich, Switzerland
“Color and Light,” Austerer-Crider Gallery, Palm Springs, CA, USA
“Color and Light: the art of Roberto Lauro,” Eleonore Austerer Gallery, San Francisco, CA, USA
“Flower Power,” with Ed Baynard, Roberto Azank, Siegward Sprotte, and Daniel Phil...
Category
1960s Abstract Expressionist Abstract Paintings
