Igino Stella was born on 8th August 1920 from Luigi and Caterina Mattei in Novele, Acquasanta Terme, in the region of Ascoli Piceno. He spends his adolescence in a direct contact with nature, helping his father and his brothers in the work of the fields. This is a hard work in a rough mountain land, cultivated between slopes and in open spaces between rocks. There, he forms his character: contemplative, mild, genuine, hardened by the severity and the adversities of his future life. In 1940, at the age of 20, he is called as a soldier from Rome. He comes back home after the 8th September 1943 and he starts again the work of the fields. In 1945 his mother dies, victim of an accident. In 1947, he marries Concetta Ionni and loses his first son. In 1950 he leaves the poor fields that he cultivated and his hometown home to move to Ascoli Piceno with his family. There, he is employed as a control mask in a movie theatre. For him, the impact with the town-living is a bit traumatic and, initially, it is full of sacrifices and financial straits. Two years later, he loses his second son and his wife Concetta. By his side remains his father, to whom he has always been bound. In 1955 he marries Livia Falleroni who dies in 1967, leaving two sons: Rita (ten years old) and Luigi Riccardo (eight and a half years old). But he is forced to leave them in youth detention centres. During this period, his painting was born. Left alone with his anguish, with his pain, and with his inconsolable memory of his lost affections, he finds a shelter and a consolation in a world that he has always chased but never reached. Now, this world is opened for him , with no limites, spaces or time. It offers itself to his loneliness, to his emotional energy, to his geniune research and to his creative art that explodes in colours. Igino Stella dies on 23th August 2011, leaving several works.
Rita Stella
“At the age of 47, unconsciously, I feel the need to explode. But I’m scared of colour. By the way, I close my eyes and I throw down. I see, with my astonishment, an image that hits me deeply. Totally taken by this vortex, I give up myself, creating repeatedly some images that drive me to fantastic world of the colour beauty that sublimates me from particular and painful experiences of my life”
Igino Stella