My Life, My Collection Meneghelli Family Collection
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Vittorino Meneghelli has always had an avid interest in the art world and he has fostered this interest throughout his life. Growing up in Mirano, a small town near Venice, he made many fascinating friends – preferring to be amongst more Bohemian and open-minded people. He and his faithful wife, Paolina, were the happy hosts for a group of artists and art critics who collaborated to form Il Fronte Nuovo delle Arti (The New Movement of Artists) during the immediate post-war era. This diverse crowd included such personalities as Alberto Viani (Vittorino’s mentor and closest friend), Renato Birolli and Armando Pizzinato. Through trade with these friends he built up a collection of their works, a wise investment in each other’s futures as these friends went on to become prominent artists in Italian art culture and later in Europe and, from there, across the globe.
From left: Alberto Viani, Lea Zerbo, Giuseppe Marchiori, Giuseppe Santomaso. Meneghelli house, Venezia, 1945.
It was from Alberto Viani (more about their relationship can be read in the book “Letters to Alberto Viani”) that Vittorino derived his passion for “primitive art” – ethnic African art was a novelty in Europe in the 1940’s and very few had interest or access to this vast world. Once the economy started gaining momentum, many Europeans started to travel. Vittorino used the opportunity to immigrate to Johannesburg, South Africa with his wife and their new son. There he began to surround himself with the talented artist of the time, such as Edoardo Villa, Norman Catherine and Cecil Skotnes, to name a few. Whilst dabbling in many types of business, he finally settled into making brooms, firmly establishing Academy Brushware with his son, Andrea.
Vittorino Meneghelli with a Dogon tribe in Mali, 1968 during a fertility ceremony
In the meantime, he still found time to travel with his family around Africa – a relatively difficult experience since, at the time, there were not many roads going into the tribal lands. Vittorino managed to amass a varied collection of genuine pieces from traders in the region and the people of the tribes themselves.
He has spent the last 5 years compiling his life and travel experiences into a richly detailed memoir which he has compounded with a catalogue of his favourite items from his collection across his life. This book, entitled My Life, My Collection (La Mia Vita, La Mia Collezione), is presented in English and Italian. Half of this book contains photos from his life and the many friends and locations he encountered; the second half comprises of a full-colour, glossy catalogue exhibiting some 250 glossy pages of artworks he has collected, including those from Il Fronte Nuovo delle Arti, contemporary South African artists and a substantial section of African Art.
On completing this achievement in his closing years, Vittorino presented it to the art loving public. He launched the book in Johannesburg’s Standard Bank Gallery (long time supporters of Vittorino Meneghelli and his various collections) and the Iziko South African National Gallery of Cape Town – to be pleasantly commended and congratulated by his many friends from across the years, many of them artists that have now become major figures on the South African art scene. He went on to launch his book in Italy, combined with an exhibition of some more prominent pieces in his collection (of both traditional African art and contemporary Italian artists), in his home town of Mirano and was presented by the council with the key to the city – a crowning accomplishment that truly brought his life into full circle.
This autobiography of a remarkable man compounds into a reference book for contemporary art lovers and specifically African Art lovers. This book is available for order through this website.
La Mia Vita, La Mia Collezione
My Life, My Collection
by Vittorino Meneghelli
Published by Totem Galleries, 2007, Republic of South Africa
ISBN 978-0-620-38246-5