Sandro Chia biography

Sandro Chia, pseudonym of Alessandro Coticchia is an Italian painter and sculptor. Born in Florence in 1946 and is one of the main exponents of the Italian Transavantgarde together with Francesco Clemente, Mimmo Paladino, Nicola De Maria and Enzo Cucchi. He trained at the Art Institute and at the Academy of Fine Arts in Florence where he graduated in 1969. After graduation he began traveling throughout Europe, India and Turkey up to settling in Rome in 1970.
In the same year he began to exhibit in Rome and Europe, gradually moving away from conceptual art towards a more figurative style until arriving at Transavantgarde, an artistic movement founded by Achille Bonito Oliva.
In 1980 he exhibited in the Aperto 80 section at the Venice Biennale together with the other representatives of his same artistic movement. In the same year he held a personal exhibition in New York where he moved, remaining there for twenty years and often alternating short stays in Montalcino in the province of Siena. From then on he holds personal exhibitions and participates in collective exhibitions in the most important galleries and museums at a national and international level.
Sandro Chia develops an artistic language that strongly recalls Renaissance art and the artistic movements of first half of the twentieth century. His art, which is inspired by the great masters of the past such as Titian, Masaccio, Tintoretto, Lotto, Michelangelo and by contemporaries Giorgio de Chirico, Fernand Lèger, Paul Cèzanne, Francis Picabia and Marc Chagall is pure image creation that reflects exclusively itself. His works are characterized by a strong and dynamic pictorial sign and often populated by heroic male figures painted with full-bodied and bright colours.
In 2003, the Italian State acquires three important works for the permanent collection of the Senate of the Italian Republic at Palazzo Madama, while in 2005, the Province of Rome acquires two monumental sculptures placed in front of his headquarters in Via IV Novembre.
In 2011 a retrospective was held at the Foro Boario in Modena and at the MIC, Museum of Ceramics in Faenza. In 2012 it was the turn of the retrospective Transavantgarde at Palazzo Reale in Milan and in 2014 the city of Livorno commissioned him to create a monumental bronze sculpture to be placed in the newly restored square where the headquarters are located of the Sant'Anna Research Center.
Sandro Chia today lives between Miami, Rome and his Castello Romitorio wine estate in Montalcino, where he also follows the production of prestigious wines.