Danilo Vitali was born in Bellano on September 4, 1935 and, at the age of thirteen, began working in the workshop of tinsmith Antonio Carnovali, known as “Toléé,” from whom he learned the first notions of sheet metal working.
After a few years he was hired by the Carlo Borlenghi Company as a plumber and tinsmith, where he deepened his technique.
At the age of twenty-five he worked in his mother’s fish market processing fish, until 1970 when he decided to devote himself, as a self-taught artist, to the technique of embossing and chiseling on copper plate, using drawings by painters and architects as models. After a path of research, he began a new phase in which he created personal works in the round. He worked in the workshop of tinsmith Antonio Carnovali, known as “Toléé,” from whom he learned the first notions of working with sheet metal.
But it is also a very personal way this of Danilo Vitali, the result of a long path of practice, research, study, but especially of work; artisan work made of burins, hammers, chisels, which transformed the artist’s own hands into tools, to engrave, beat and cut, burnish, grind, silver, heat, flame and weld to transform and bend a mineral material to new forms, the result of observation, experience and human creativity.
His first solo exhibition “The Copper Road” was held in August 2013 with great public success and press interest.
San Nicolao houses the collection of works created from 1970 until 2020, thanks to a generous donation to the municipality: a priceless heritage for the Bellano community and for visitors who, by visiting “the Suspended Aquarium,” can immerse themselves in his creative universe.
