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"The
Work of Cav. Romeo Di Girolamo PRBA", |
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page 5 |
back to the Journey | |||||||
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| "Local
Face", an
article taken from Wendover
News, April 1998 edition, by Jane Larkham, Editor |
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"...he set about building a revolutionary
system of art education that offered rare
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Meanwhile Romeo's
career had taken another direction, first as a teacher in Marlow and at
Slough Grammar School and then eventually as Principal of the Art College
at Amersham. It was at Amersham that he set about building a revolutionary
system of art education that offered rare opportunity for the talented student
with few academic qualifications. In the late 1970s and early 1980s
students from Amersham were winning many national awards and design competitions;
it was arguably the best of its kind in the country. Romeo was knighted
by the Italian government at the age of 36, and invited to Chequers and
Downing Street by the prime minister Margaret Thatcher. Romeo's paintings in this period show the crumbling concrete of the industries he painted in the 50s and 60s. But now they are no longer dominant and threatening, instead they are ravaged by triumphant weeds and undergrowth. The fences have fallen, trampled warning notices discarded, unheeded. The walls of the establishment are cracking, sunlight pours in, alien weeds run riot, creating beauty where once there was deprivation, strong roots tearing at outdated foundations. Nature wins. And it is all so simple. Stated in so few marks and colours there is an almost Taoist quality to these paintings that stands in spiritual and altruistic contrast to the hedonism of 1980s Britain. |
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