Carlo Zinelli
Carlo Zinelli was born at San Giovanni Lupatoto (Verona) in 1916. He was only two years old when his mother died. When he was nine, his father, a carpenter, sent him to work on a farm. Carlo later became a butcher’s apprentice at the municipal abattoirs in Verona. During this time he began to engage in art. During the Second World War he enlisted in an alpine platoon.
After having served for two months as a volunteer in Spanish Civil War, he was sent home due to poor health. He started to have psychological problem.
Between 1941 and 1947, he spent both time in psychiatric wards and at work. Then he was admitted to the San Giacomo psychiatric hospital in Verona. He initially did drawings on the floor and created scratched pictures on the walls. In 1957 he was accepted into the graphic design studio founded by Michael Noble. Here, until the hospital closing in 1969, he produced almost 3000 pictures, mainly gouaches with works on both sides, consisting of silhouettes of stylized people and animals.
He died in 1974. One of the first artist in the Jean Dubuffet collection, his pictures can be viewed in many international private and public collections.
Solo Exhibitions
2024 – “Carlo Zinelli”, Galerie JP Ritsch Fisch, Strasburg, France
2019 – “Carlo Zinelli: Recto Verso”, Collection de l’Art Brut, Lausanne, Switzerland
2019 – “Carlo Zinelli. Visione Continua”, Fondazione Palazzo Te, Mantua, Italy
2017 – “Carlo Zinelli (1916-1974)”, American Folk Art Museum, New York, NY
2017 – Outsider Art Fair, represented by Maroncelli 12 Gallery and Rizomi Gallery, New York
2011 – “Carlo Zinelli: A Convulsive Beauty”, Galerie Christian Berst, Paris, France
2004 – “Rétrospective”, Musée International des Arts Modestes, Sète, France
2000 – “Carlo Zinelli”, J.P. Ritsch-Fisch Galerie, Fondazione Carlo Zinelli, Strasbourg, France
1992 – “Carlo: Tempere, Collages, Sculpture”, Museo di Castelvecchio, Verona, Italy
Selected Group Exhibitions
2020 – “Art Brut à la folie”, Galerie les Yeux fertiles & Galerie Arthur Borgnis, Paris, France
2018 – “Leben in Art Brut”, Hannah Rieger Collection, Bildraum Bodensee, Bregenz, Austria
2018 – “Historias de Violencia: a Dialogue Between Works from the Treger/Saint Silvestre Collection”, curated by Gustavo Giacosa, Oliva Creative Factory, São João da Madeira, Portugal
2018 – “Exhibition #7”, The Museum of Everything, Museum of Old and New Art, Hobart, Australia
2017 – “Living in Art Brut, 123 Works from the Hannah Rieger Collection”, Museumkrems, Krems an der Donau, Austria
2017 – “Art Brut: a History of Individual Mythologies”, curated by Christian Berst, Oliva Creative Factory, São João da Madeira, Portugal
2016 – “Exhibition #6”, The Museum of Everything, Rotterdam, Netherlands
2016 – “As Essential as Dreams: Self-Taught Art from the Collection of Stephanie and John Smither”, The Menil Collection, Houston, Texas
2016 – “Work Made by Hand”, Andrew Edlin Gallery, New York, NY
2016 – “On the Wire” by Jean-Hubert Martin, Galerie Christian Berst and Jean Brolly Gallery, Paris, France
2015 – “Furtive and wild like a deer. Masterpieces of Italian Irregular Art”, Maroncelli 12 Gallery, Milan, Italy
2015 – Outsider Art Fair, represented by Maroncelli 12 Gallery, Paris, France
2015 – Outsider Art Fair, represented by Cavin-Morris Gallery, New York, NY
2015 – “preTENse”, Galerie Christian Berst, Paris, France
2015 – “Art Brut Live”, Dox Centre for Contemporary Art, Prague, Czech Republic
2015 – “Art Brut”, Collection abcd/bruno decharme, La Maison Rouge, Paris, France
2014 – “Do the Write Thing, Read Between the Lines”, Galerie Christian Berst, Paris, France
2014 – “Art Brut: Breaking the Boundaries”, Treger-Saint Silvestre Collection, Oliva Creative Factory, São João da Madeira, Portugal
2014 – “(off)icielle”, Galerie Christian Berst, Cité de la Mode et du Design, Paris, France
2013 – “Bandits of Art”, Halle Saint Pierre, Paris, France
2014 – The Museum of Everything, 55th Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy
2014 – “Vehicles”, Collection de L’art Brut, Lausanne, Switzerland
2014 – “Story Lines. Tracing Narrative of Art”, Galerie St. Etienne, New York, NY
2014 – “Borderline. Artisti Tra Normalità e Follia”, Museo d’Arte della Città de Ravenna, Ravenna, Italy
2012 – Il Palazzo Enciclopedico, 55th Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy
2009 – “Exhibition #1”, The Museum of Everything, Pinacoteca Agnelli, Turin, Italy
2009 – “Art, Genius and Madness”, Santa Maria Della Scala Museum Complex, Siena, Italy & the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, IL
2008 – “Glossolalia: Languages of Drawing”, Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY
2007 – “Beautés insensées. Figures, Histoires et maitres de l’art irrégulier”, curated by Bianca Tosatti, Salle d’exposition du Quai Antoine 1°, Monaco
2006 – “Oltre la ragione. Figure, storie e maestri dell’arte iregolare”, curated by Bianca Tosatti, Palazzo della Ragione, Bergamo, Italy
2005 – “Dubuffet and Art Brut”, traveled to Museum Kunst Palast, Düsseldorf, Germany; Collection de l’Art Brut, Lausanne, Switzerland; Museum of Modern Art Lille Metropole, Villeneuve D’Ascq, France
2004 – “Inner Worlds Outside”, Whitechapel Gallery, London, England
2004 – “Ecritures en Délire”, Collection de L’art Brut, Lausanne, Switzerland
2004 – “À Corps Perdu”, abcd, une Collection d’Art Brut, Pavillon des Arts, Paris, France
2003 – “Carlo Zinelli”, Musée International des Arts Modestes, Sète, France
2002 – “In Search of Lost Minds”, Trento History Museum, Trento, Italy
2002 – “Vernacular Visionaries”, The Folk Art Museum, Santa Fe, New Mexico
2002 – “The Crowd”, Collection de L’art Brut Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland
2001 – “American Anthem: Masterworks from the American Folk Art Museum”, New York, NY
1999 – “The Colours of the Mind”, Palazzo Reale, Milan, Italy and Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, Ireland
1997 – “Art Brut, From the Underground to the Consecration”, Musée d’Ethnographie, Geneva, Switzerland
1997 – “L’Art Brut à la Création Franche”, Collection Philippe Eternod and Jean-David Mermod, Musée de la Création Franche, Bégles, France
1997 – “Art Brut”, Collection de l’Aracine, Lille Métropole Musée d’Art Moderne, Villeneuve d’Ascq, France
1992 – “Parallel Visions Modern Artists and Outsider Art”, Los Angeles County Museum of Arts, Los Angeles, CA; traveled to Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid, Spain
1985 – “Jean Dubuffet and Art Brut”, Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice, Italy
1963 – “Art Brut”, Kunsthalle Bern, Bern, Switzerland
Selected collections
Collection abcd, Centre Pompidou, Paris, France
Anthony Petullo Collection, Milwaukee, WI
L’Arcaine Collection, LaM, Musée de Art Moderne, Lille Métropole, France
Arnulf Rainer Collection, Vienna, Austria
Collection de l’Art Brut, Lausanne, Switzerland
Intuit: The Center for Intuitive and Outsider Art, Chicago, IL
Musée de la Création Franche, Bègles, France
Museum Dr. Guislain, Ghent, Belgium
Olomouc Museum of Art, Olomouc, Czech Republic
Galerie Christian Berst, Paris, France
The Musgrave Kinley Outsider Art Collection, Manchester, England
Treger Saint Silvestre Collection, Porto, Portugal
Dammann Collection, Bâle, Switzerland