Lugano
Alfredo Chighine was born in Milan on March 9, 1914, to a family of Sardinian and Lombard origins. Despite economic difficulties, he soon began to cultivate his artistic vocation by attending evening classes at the Scuola Professionale dell’Umanitaria, where he also studied engraving. In 1941, at age 27, he exhibited his first painting at the 3rd Permanent Provincial Exhibition. Animated by a growing passion for art, both painting and sculpture, in 1945 he decided to devote himself completely to an artistic career: he left his job and home and enrolled first in the Istituto Superiore d’Arte Decorativa in Monza, then in the sculpture course taught by Giacomo Manzù at the Brera Academy of Fine Arts.
Initially he concentrated on wood sculpture, and then gradually approached drawing and painting. An important turning point came in 1946, when he won an award at the exhibition Beyond Guernica with a sculpture that attracted the attention of critics for its intense expressive capacity. From that moment, his artistic production began to be noticed, appreciated in particular for the sensitivity with which he was able to represent reality. In 1950 he held his first solo exhibition at the Galleria San Fedele in Milan. His artistic research became increasingly oriented toward informal painting, with works in which light, matter and nature merge into a strongly evocative visual language.
A crucial role in his career was played by the Galleria del Milione, which offered him important exhibition opportunities and helped consolidate his reputation in the national art scene. He participated in numerous editions of the Milan Triennale and other exhibitions in Italy and abroad. In 1957 he was selected for the Rome-New York Art Foundation exhibition, curated by Laurence Alloway, Pierre Restany and Michel Tapié, a key figure in European informal art.
In 1958 he moved his studio to Milan and in the same year took part in the XXIX Venice Biennale, while his first monograph was being published. In 1964 he participated in the exhibition Pittura a Milano dal 1945 al 1964, held at Palazzo Reale, presenting both canvases and wood sculptures. After the death of Gino Ghiringhelli, the historic director of the Galleria del Milione, his collaboration with the latter thinned out, but Chighine continued to exhibit regularly, gaining new recognition. He spent the last years of his life in Viareggio, where he died on July 16, 1974.
His work has been reevaluated and celebrated in numerous posthumous exhibitions, including a major retrospective organized in 1975 at the Liceo Saracco in Acqui Terme, as well as various exhibitions curated by Repetto & Massucco, Elena Pontiggia and others, which helped renew interest in one of the less conventional protagonists of postwar Italian art.
