Velda Ponti

From the 1950s Velda Ponti began to attend major exhibitions: the Venice Biennale, the Rome Quadrennial, etc.
She is impressed by the works of Pollock, Wols, Appel, De Kooning, Vedova and Fontana and she juxtaposes them with her previous landmarks, Piero della Francesca, Paolo Uccello, Bosch and Michelangelo.

Her first significant pictorial cycle dates back to 1969-1973.
Her original inspiration is linked to expressionism and the conception of a natural and spontaneous art: later she gradually abandons the expressionist influence, without losing the pleasure for colors, simplicity and irony.

In 1977 she met Franco Gentilini, in whose dream world she recognized herself.
From increasingly frequent encounters with Mattia Moreni she draws stimuli and in '83 she begins a continuous collaboration which she interrupts in November 1985, due to differences in a tense cultural setting, that of Velda Ponti, increasingly in search of her own identity.

Among her direct interlocutors: Mattia Moreni and the Cobra group of Karel Appel and Asger Jorn.
In over fifty years of painting she went through different periods: such as "Landscapes", "Portraits", "Dolls".
With the cycle "Maybe They are Lips" (2000) the image of her approaches the human physiognomy and in "Blankets" (2001-2002) the images are discovered and new forms such as butterflies and faces begin to be read.

Present at the main national collectives, there are numerous personal exhibitions dedicated to her.
The main ones in Cesena in 1988 curated by Marisa Zattini and in Rome in 1999 with the presentation of Alberto Fiz.

Calo Polgrossi curated "The Race of Heroes" in Brisighella in 2009 and in 2015 in Bagnacavallo, while Giuseppe Masetti and Daniele Serafini curated "Desert Flowers" in Lugo di Romagna in 2011.
Velda Ponti passed away on 22 December 2020, at the age of 86, in Brisighella.

Submitted by La Maison de la Petite Sara