12 Facts About Mino Argento

Mino Argento was born on January 5,1927 and is an Italian painter, mainly depicting abstract themes on canvas and paper.

Mino Argento began as an architect, and first exhibited paintings at a 1968 exhibition at Gallery Astrolobio in Rome presented by Marcello Venturoli.

Until his arrival in 1969 in New York City, Argento was a figurative painter.

Mino Argento left Italy because of his unwillingness to continue painting in a figurative manner, which he felt was expected in Europe.

Mino Argento was represented in London, England, by Nigel Greenwood beginning in 1974.

Mino Argento dealt with the ambiguous subtleties of the interplay of positive-negative space.

Mino Argento enjoyed contrasting the hardness and the aridity of penciled lines with sensuous layers of oil.

Mino Argento would build up the white gesso, at times adding oil paint, until it could almost be mistaken for collage.

Mino Argento meticulously built up his delicate surfaces, so fragile that every gesture was critical, with layer upon transparent layer of gesso, carefully balancing the tone values of the medium against the intensity of his pencil line.

Mino Argento dramatizes distance by the recognition of affirmations and denials within the same picture plane.

Mino Argento specializes in geometric shapes with cloudy edges, expanses of industrial gray touched up with bright-and-airy candy-colored backgrounds.

Especially rewarding is the display of relatively artists: Mino Argento restrained geometry in his painting wars with the infinity of space in the gentle gradations of background color.