Tancredi

In 1946, Tancredi Parmeggiani enrolled at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Venice to attend the courses of the Scuola Libera del Nudo, held by Armando Pizzinato. During this period he met and became friends with Emilio Vedova.

At the end of 1947 the painter went to Paris, where he got to know the European avant-garde of the first half of the century. Between 1948 and 1949 he lived and worked between Feltre and Venice and, in May 1949, he held his first personal exhibition at the Galleria Sandri with a presentation by Virgilio Guidi.

In 1950 he stayed in Rome, where he joined the Age d'Or group, which organised exhibitions and editions of the international avant-garde. The following year he took part in the 1st Exhibition of Italian Abstract Art at the Galleria Nazionale di Arte Moderna e Contemporanea in Rome. Shortly afterwards he returned to Venice, where he met Peggy Guggenheim, who provided him with a studio and bought his works. In 1952, again in Venice, he was awarded the Graziano Prize for painting; in the same year, together with other artists, he signed the manifesto of Spatialism, a movement founded in Milan around 1947 by Lucio Fontana. He exhibited in 1952 at the Galleria del Cavallino in Venice. In 1953 he also exhibited at the Galleria del Naviglio in Milan, with presentations by Peggy Guggenheim and Virgilio Guidi; he was also invited to the Italy-France exhibition in Turin, where he exhibited in the room next to Hans Hartung. In 1954 he participated in Tendances Actuelles with Pollock, Wols, Mathieu at the Kunsthalle Bern.

1955 began with his final separation from Peggy Guggenheim and ended with his departure for Paris, where he exhibited in a group show at the Galerie Stadler. In Paris he met Dubuffet, Asger Jorn and Karel Appel.

In the following years he exhibited at the Saidenberg Gallery in New York, the Hannover Gallery in London, the Selecta Gallery in Rome and took part in the Carniege International in Pittsburgh. In 1958, he married the Norwegian painter Tove Dietrichson.

Between 1958 and the end of 1959 he shared a studio in Palazzo Carminati, home of the Fondazione Bevilacqua la Masa, with his artist friend Davide Orler.

In 1962, after a trip to Sweden, he exhibited at the Venetian Canale Gallery and the Levi Gallery in Milan, and received the Marzotto Prize in Valdagno.

On 27 September 1964, Tancredi killed himself jumping into the TIber river.