Attilio Salemme
Terry Dintenfass Gallery
Attilio Salemme is best known for the curious canvases of Surrealist persuasion which come from the early 1950s, just prior to his death. Essentially carefully colored drawings, these paintings dispose plank-like rectangulated personages across horizons opaquely painted in cool, fruit-flavored colors. They resemble the Surrealist accretions of Kay Sage in the period and, through her, the compositions of her husband, Yves Tanguy. They speak of Noguchi’s theatre sets for Martha Graham and a great deal of forgotten graphic work, even some by Louise Bourgeois. But Salemme’s painting is more severe