Emilio Giuseppe Dossena

• Name — Emilio Giuseppe Dossena • Born — 10 December 1903 • Birthplace — Cavenago d'Adda, Lombardy, Kingdom of Italy • Died — 23 March 1987 • Place of death — Milan, Lombardy, Italy • Children — Tiziano Thomas Dossena • Occupation — Artist

He attended the Brera Academy (Milan) and the Scuola del Castello (Milan), where he formed strong friendships with Aligi Sassu, Ernesto Treccani, Renato Guttuso, Domenico Cantatore and Umberto Lilloni. At the Scuola del Castello he won a prize for his sculpture works (a trip to Venice), but his attraction toward color made him choose painting as the medium of artistic communication.

Although his tendency toward impressionism was evident from the beginning, the necessity to provide for his family forced him to dedicate only his spare time to this aspect of the arts. He therefore earned his livelihood for many years with the restoration and the decoration of villas and castles, in addition to producing frescoes for the local churches. In the residences of Pirelli, Falck, Borletti, Invernizzi, Necchi, Toscanini, Count Cicogna, Duke Gallarati Scotti, and Count Castelbarco, Emilio Giuseppe Dossena decorated, restored and painted large panels with mythological and archaic themes and battles. His works were also in the Italian Embassy in Addis Abeba, Ethiopia, but were destroyed by air raids during WWII. His passion for artistic expression allowed him to retain his creative integrity, and he became a sought-after impressionist, known for the sensibility of his works as much as for the dynamic strokes that characterized them. His first solo exhibit, at the Galleria Gavioli in Milan (1943), was a success with the critics and the public, and all of the paintings were purchased by collectors. The exhibit at the Galleria Hoepli in Milan (1964), and the one at the Palazzo dell’Arredamento, in Desio (1967), also achieved a good response, earning a place on the prestigious Enciclopedia dell’Arte (Edizioni SEDA, Milan). Until the mid-1950s, Dossena signed his paintings GDossena (for Giuseppe Dossena), but the signature mutated in E.G.Dossena after that period. After the artist lost his studio in a fire, he moved in 1968 to Brooklyn, New York, and resided at 54 Cheever Place in Carroll Gardens and was employed by Studio Berger, restoring works by Renoir, Rembrandt, Picasso and other masters, property of museums and private collections, among which stand out the Metropolitan Museum of New York and the Playboy Club. In New York, the artist temporarily abandoned his impressionist roots, embracing the neo-expressionism, creating shapes more simplified, almost essential, without any schematism or structural restrictions. The shape is almost snatched from nature, in continued research to contain and interpret the existential essence and express these new inescapable sensations, which the artist feels away from his country.

• Illustration — Emilio Giuseppe Dossena, Giorno Di Mercato, 1976 (Expressionist period). The exhibits at the Columbus Citizens Foundation (1973) and the Galerie Internationale (1973, 1974) gave unforeseen positive results. Dorothy Hall, art critic of NY Park East magazine, stated: "These are exuberant works in rich, assertive color, dealing with varied subject matter, both abstract and representational. In either case, there's a feeling of nervous energy bursting forth in the artist's treatment of generously flowered fields, butterflies, still lifes and dancing figures …” Dossena exhibited at the Galleria Treves (Spotorno, 1977), Galleria Il Portichetto (Stresa, 1978), and the Circolo Ambrosiano Meneghin e Cecca (Milan, 1983). The specialized press covered these events profusely, offering only positive comments. The art critic Mario Portalupi affirmed: “In truth, his painting process is born out of impressions and the subsequent emotions, which transform reality and regulate the chromatic entities on the canvas…”