about Roberto Ruspoli

Roberto Ruspoli is an Italian artist, poet & writer, known for his large scale linear figurative works. Born in Lugano, Switzerland, Roberto attended the Liceo Classico E.Q. Visconti, before stu- dying painting at the School of Visual Arts, New York. Tutored in particular, by the influential abstract expressionist Michael Goldberg of the New York School Generation. Other instrumental mentors included the great conceptual artist, Lucio Pozzi, and the noted abstract minimalist Georgia Marsh.

These factors would subsequently spark an interest in the abstract and two-dimensional depiction of the figure; a motif he would later develop in his works.

In 1995, Ruspoli exhibited with the historic Tartaruga Gallery of Plinio de Martiis. This first solo show, Persona, was curated by Maria Silvia Farci. In 1999, he performed in the production of “O Dido”, at the Teatro Argentina, Rome, and the Tanztheater Wuppertal, by the German choreographer, and director Pina Bausch. Bausch’s ‘savagely hypnotic’ emotive works of expression through movement, hold fundamental importance in Roberto’s artistic development.

In the subsequent years, several Italian exhibitions curated by Elena del Drago were held. A series of his drawings was exhibited at the Vangelli de Cresci gallery, Paris, in 2015. Furthermore, Ruspoli collaborated with the architect Fabrizio Casiraghi for AD Interieurs 2018. This subsequently lead to the commissioning by Marie Kalt, for AD of the March-April issue 2019 of 8 backdrops presented in-conjunction with contemporary furniture pieces, representing the best of Italians design, which ensued many more commissions.

Ruspoli continues his pictorial expression of the human form, in his artistic exploration with varying mediums including, ceramics and applied design. His classicist’s background is strongly alluded to in his subject matter; and with his formal training, there is a confidence and pared down simplicity. His paintings are populated with disarming pictorial forms, archetypal symbolism, devoid of gender, and nationality; yet, somehow universally recognisable, even if only discreetly intimated. His artistic contemporaneity speaks of a vision that unites in a temporal collapse of the visual perception and the collective unconscious, with immediate representational spontaneity.

Roberto describes his technique as a mediation, comparatively to the intuitive nature of a musician, the body being a further extension of the instrument. A stream of consciousness bubbling over, giving the ability and freedom of single, unaltered brushstrokes, and gestures, rather than the confines from prepared projections and cartoons. He refers to the rediscovery and exploration of his inner child, the purity of this place, being the seat of his essence of creativity, resonating, in its totality throughout his art.

In 2019, he participated in the refurbishment of Drouant, a Parisian restaurant, home to the deliberations of the Prix Goncourt, by creating two frescoes in the Proust and Renaudot salons.

In 2021, commissions include murals for Soho House Paris and Bambini restaurant at Palais de Tokyo.

In 2022 he paints the frescoes of the ceilings of the hotel La Palma in Capri among others.

In 2023 he collaborated with Molteni and Vincent Van Duysen for their campaign and the Salone del Mobile 2023. In the same year he collabotaes with Molteni again for the Design Week in Miami and for commissions in New York for private clients.

In 2024 he exhibits his work along with the work of Andre Masson at the gallery EDDart in Rome. 

3 paintings by the artist are now part of the collection of the Italian Embassy in Paris.

Roberto currently resides in Paris where he continues his expressive research and collaborates with noted architects in the realisation of pictorial projects.