The memory of the sacred. Salvatore Fiume in the Vatican

The Collection of Contemporary Art of the Vatican Museums, which owns a rich collection of works of the artist, dedicated three rooms to a selection of works, chosen to emphasize the originality with which Fiume faced the sacred iconography, with his great capacity to revisit tradition with a modern gaze.
The exhibition will be mainly made up of religious paintings, including The Triumph of the Church, a sketch of the mosaic realized in 1967 for the Basilica of Nazareth, the great Miraculous Fishing of 1977 and the Preaching of St. Paul, donated by the artist to Paul VI on the occasion of his eightieth birthday.
A prominent place will be reserved to the painting "Nigra sum sed formosa", a work that highlights the instinct of Fiume to experiment and use new materials.
Two paintings stand out among the ones related to profane subject: The large triptych "Island Statues" dated 1950, which thrilled Gio Ponti at the Venice Biennal that year, and the African Gioconda (1974), inspired by the Leonardo's Mona Lisa and dedicated to all the women of Africa, a land especially loved by Fiume that influenced him in the realization of many of his works.
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