Giovanni Spiniello

Giovanni Spiniello was born on 5 March 1944 in Grottolella, in the province of Avellino in Campania, southern Italy. He grew up in rural Irpinia, and the peasant culture, folk tales and myths of the area became the main subject of his art. Details of his parents and childhood have not been made public.

Spiniello graduated from the Accademia di Belle Arti in Naples. He later taught life drawing (disegno dal vero) and visual education at the Istituto Statale d'Arte in Avellino, the city's state art school, for many years.

Spiniello worked as a sculptor, painter, engraver, illustrator and ceramicist. His signature invention was "fossilizzazione oggettuale" (object fossilisation), which he developed at the end of 1968 after seeing fossil prints in the rock of Monte Terminio. Real objects were pressed into damp etching paper under the press so that their imprint stayed in the work. Enrico Crispolti called the results "cartoggettografie multicolorate" and signalled him in the Bolaffi catalogue of graphic art. Spiniello extended the method to reinforced concrete (plastoggettografia), oil on canvas (olioggettografia), clay (ceramicoggettografia) and antique tempera (temperaoggettografia, terraoggettografia), and late in life developed what he called the "semina del colore" (sowing of colour).

He exhibited at the VII Biennale of Contemporary Italian Engraving in Venice in 1968 at 24, at the X Quadriennale in Rome in 1975 and at La Seduzione dell'Artigianato in Rome in 1990. From the 1960s he also worked as an editorial illustrator. At the end of the 1980s he chose to work only in Irpinia, and from the 1990s he devoted a new cycle to peasant traditions, preparing antique tempera colours by hand. His studio on Piazza Duomo in Avellino and his laboratory and open air sculpture museum in Grottolella were his bases for decades. From 2003 he was the "Maestro del Colore" for the Teatro Carlo Gesualdo in Avellino. His final cycle, "La terra è stanca", toured Milan (2019), Matera (June 2019), the Abbey of Goleto (2019) and the Casino del Principe in Avellino (2021 to 2022). In 2022 he donated an artwork to cover the shell of the old Dogana building in Avellino's historic centre.

Spiniello's public works include "Heysel '85, per non dimenticare" (reinforced concrete, Stadio Partenio, Avellino, unveiled 5 February 1986 for the Italy versus West Germany friendly); "Il percorso dell'amore" (bronze, Grottolella); "La forza per volare alto" (reinforced concrete, Volturara Irpina); "La Terra di Mezzo" (bronze monument, Villamaina); "Felicita Laetitia" (verdigris patina bas relief, Cairano) and "I guardiani di Felicita Letizia" (donated to Cairano in 2019); "La sedia dell'accoglienza" (Liceo Publio Virgilio Marone, Avellino); and "L'angelo custode della Salute" (Moscati hospital, Avellino). Installations included "Solo la carta per dormire" at the Museo del Duomo (2000 to 2006) and "La dea Mefite racconta la storia" at the Museo Provinciale Irpino (2000 to 2004).

Spiniello lived with his family in Grottolella and worked for decades in his shop on Piazza Duomo in Avellino, which friends describe as always open to anyone. His son Virginiano Spiniello worked alongside him on L'Albero Vagabondo and photographed his work. He also had a daughter, Mariangela. Information about a spouse has not been made public.

Spiniello believed art should serve society and "the last", the poor and forgotten. He took his Feste del colore to farmyards and village squares from the 1960s, worked in the streets of Naples and in border towns, and saw art as social and technical experiment. He was a committed environmentalist. In 2019 he summed up his last cycle with the words "La Terra è Stanca" (The Earth Is Tired), urging people to learn to walk barefoot and leave no more footprints on the planet.

Spiniello was described by local press as the "Chagall irpino" and as a forerunner of environmental and social art in southern Italy. His public sculptures mark many towns in Irpinia, his teaching shaped generations of students at the Avellino art school, and the Albero Vagabondo project taught children to map and denounce illegal dumping. Documentation of his work is held in the historical archive of the Venice engraving biennale and at the Centro Documentazione in Pavia.

1968: selected by Giorgio Trentin for the VII Biennale of Contemporary Italian Engraving, Venice. 1975: X Quadriennale, Rome. 1979: signalled in the Bolaffi catalogue by Enrico Crispolti. 1996: only Irpinian artist included in the encyclopedia Irpinia Illustrata. 1999: first edition of the prize Una vita per l'arte, Castellarte. 2009: special jury prize, Premio Internazionale Giovi Città di Salerno (28 November 2009), for his work linked to the territory. 2018: prize in memory of headmaster Nicola Vietri.

Spiniello appeared on RAI3's Geo & Geo on 23 December 2004. He illustrated "L'arte innocente. Le vie eccentriche della musica contemporanea italiana" (edited by Renzo Cresti, Rugginenti, Milan, 2004). He is covered in volume VII of "Storia Illustrata di Avellino e dell'Irpinia" (1997) and in many exhibition catalogues, and was interviewed repeatedly by local broadcasters including Telenostra, Lab TV and Orticalab.

Spiniello died on the morning of 2 November 2026 at the Moscati hospital in Avellino, aged 82, of a pulmonary complication. A chapel of rest was held at the funeral home in Torrette, and the funeral took place at 3pm the same day in the Chiesa Madre of Grottolella. He was mourned by his children Virginiano and Mariangela, his daughter in law Marisa Barile, his son in law Ciro Tarotto and his grandchildren Camilla, Nicolò Paolo and Carla. Tributes came from the City of Avellino and local cultural groups. His place of burial has not been made public.