Marco Vallora, the art critic of La Stampa dies. He was 69 years old

Marco Vallora passed away at the age of 69. Eclectic personality, he was a passionate explorer of art, from the Renaissance to the twentieth century, up to the twenty-first century.

Born in Turin on 1 January 1953, Vallora will be remembered as a multifaceted personality: film critic, curator of exhibitions, university professor, he has also carved out a prestigious space for himself as a consultant for the Einaudi publishing house. Book collector, bibliophile forever, a great friend of Vittorio Sgarbi, he had recently had a domestic accident precisely because of his passion: he had injured himself in the heat of moving some heavy volumes of art from one shelf to another.

Art critic of «La Stampa» for decades, the newspaper’s signature, he has traveled a long journey in the name of visual culture, of which he was both historian and chronicler, precisely weaving the threads of the past and the present.

His passion was one with his life: he graduated with dignity of the press from the faculty of literature and philosophy of the University of Turin in 1976, with Gianni Vattimo as speaker and with co-supervisors such as Claudio Magris, Gianni Rondolino and Lionello Sozzi. Since then, his intellectual path has traveled many paths, all interconnected, marked by an interest in the phenomenology of styles and in the themes and relationships – evident and more underground – between the artistic disciplines. It is no coincidence that in his “forays”, from painting to music, reaching as far as architecture, he has given rise to a long series of exhibitions. While writing catalogs and biographies, he investigated the work of characters such as Giorgio De Chirico, Carlo Carrà, Felice Casorati, Alberto Burri, Carol Rama.

As proof of his eclecticism, with Gae Aulenti he edited a volume on the relationship between architecture, scenography, dramaturgy, in relation to the structures of melodrama. He wrote the entry “Art and aesthetics of the twentieth century” for the Utet Encyclopedia directed by Vattimo and we cannot forget another decisive intervention, such as the one entitled “The scenography of the artists” for the “History of the Theater”, edited by Guido Davico Bonino.

Teacher of art history at the University of Urbino and of aesthetics at the Polytechnic of Milan, his last comment was the one dedicated to the exhibition in Capodimonte dedicated to Battistello Caracciolo (1578-1635): “A true Caravaggesco, but unfaithful, to deadline”.