Ele d'artagnan (1911- 1987) Cent'Anni celebrating the 100th anniversary of Ele D'Artagnan's birth Visionary artist, actor, and vagabond extraordinaire, Ele D'Artagnan (1911-1987) worked and lived in the slipstream of Italian Surrealism, making paintings and drawings employing cosmic domesticity and psychedelic hues. This exhibition Ele D'Artagnan: Centi'anni, marks the centennial anniversary of the artist's birth on November 13, 1911 in Venice, Italy. Born as Michel Lombardi-Toscanini, D'Artagnan adopted his chosen artistic identity from an early acting role in The Three Muskateers. Apart from his appearances in numerous Fellini films (including Toby Dammit, City of Women, Casanova and Amarcord), a steamer trunk full of approximately 400 of D'Artagnan's works was unearthed for the first time from a wine cave in Testaccio several years ago, the neighborhood in Rome where D'Artagnan last lived, and where Fellini frequently filmed. D'Artagnan's artistic scrapbook, also in the trunk, pictures him in photographs throughout the years with Dali, de Chirico, Gina Lollobrigida, and many others. This exhibition focuses on D'Artagnan's paintings of visionary domiciles and fantastic domestic architecture, recurrent themes in the artist's work particularly resonant in light of the artist's own transient lifestyle and frequent homelessness. "Here, everything's beautiful!" the artist writes in the margins of one painted and otherworldly depiction of a house. "But he - poor thing - is unhappy, very unhappy, because without a home, he finds himself (in front of) the golden gate." This exhibition celebrates D'Artagnan's art, his life, and persistently transporting visions. This is artist's third one-person show at KS Art. Six drawings by Ele D'Artagnan are in the collection of The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Ele D'Artagnan's works were also included in two drawings surveys at MoMA: Glossolalia: Languages of Drawing (2008) (organized by Connie Butler), and Compass Hand: Selections from the Judith Rothschild Foundation Contemporary Drawings Collection (curated by Christian Rattemeyer); the latter exhibition also toured internationally. Finally, the full-length documentary focusing on the artist, Ele D'Artagnan 1911 - 1987, was also released in (2008); it was directed by Allesandra Raspa for RAI, and includes remembrances by Roberta Smith and Joel Wachs. "It's easy to say, but it's in the heart where the 'art' of today's artist-actors lies: how is it that I, (through) fantasy, am able to invent, create, and express so much?" - Ele D'Artagnan ELE D'ARTAGNAN SEPTEMBER 6 - OCTOBER 7, 2006 KS ART presents Italian artist Ele D'Artagnan's second one-person show in New York, featuring his visionary drawings and watercolors from the 1970s. D'Artagnan (1911 - 1987), a trained actor, self-taught artist, and vagabond extraordinaire who floated in and out of the Italian Surrealist scene, made drawings employing a cosmic sexuality and psychedelic line that anticipate the vital work by numerous young artists today. D'Artagnan's libidinally charged drawings had, for the most part, never previously been publicly exhibited before his first exhibition in 2003 at KS Art; five of these drawings were recently acquired by the Museum of Modern Art. A steamer trunk full of approximately 400 of D'Artagnan's works was unearthed for the first time from a wine cave in Testaccio several years ago, the same gypsy neighborhood in Rome where D'Artagnan last lived - and where Fellini frequently filmed. D'Artagnan's artistic scrapbook, also in the trunk, pictures him in photographs throughout the years with Dali, de Chirico, Gina Lollobrigida, and many others. Ele D'Artagnan's work suggests the cosmic vitality of a lost era, while simultaneously evoking an uncanny affinity with recent artistic directions. ELE D'ARTAGNAN SEPTEMBER - OCTOBER 2003 Ele D'Artagnan (1911-1987) born in Venice, Italy was an actor by profession and appeared in numerous Italian films. In 1955 he met Federico Fellini and was given a role in Il Bidone. Fellini inserted D'Artagnan into his album of bizarre and dreamlike characters and he went on to appear in many Fellini films including Amarcord. Ele D'Artagnan was also a self-taught painter who floated in and out of the Italian Surrealist scene. Using found paper or board with whatever painting medium that was at hand D'Artagnan congured fantastic worlds charged with cosmic sexuality. This exhibition at K.S. Art of work on paper made in the 1970's will be D'Artagnan's U.S. debut.