Beppe Devalle
Giuseppe Riccardo Beppe Devalle was an Italian painter and collagist, acknowledged as one of the most interesting and highly appreciated artists of the last few decades of Italian painting. He always refuted the prevailing trends of the day so as to create and distinguish his own individual style this may explain why Devalle has often been overlooked and placed as something of an outsider. He has been known as a master of photomontage and defined as a creator of the New Epic Italian style.
Devalle was born in Turin onApril 1940. During the war his family first evacuated to Cherasco, the birthplace of his paternal grandparents, and then to Lanzo Torinese, from 19431945. On returning to Turin in 1945, he attended elementary and then secondary school without much enthusiasm. In 1955 he was admitted to the Liceo Artistico dellAccademia Albertina, after having studied all summer with the Casoni brothers, on the advice of Felice Casorati, whom he had met through common friends of his parents. During the years of his attendance at the Liceo, he came in contact with the avantgarde world of contemporary art, thanks to his acquaintance with sculptors, Sandro Cherchi and Franco Garelli. He often frequented the USIS Library in Turin, and in 1958 he went to the PAC in Milan, to see the exhibition of American painting a visit which marked the beginning of his interest in Gorky and particularly in abstract expressionism.
Source: Wikipedia