Artists

Agostino Morandin Morago

Italian, born 1947

Agostino Morandin Morago was born in an old country house in Fontanelle, a hamlet in the Venetian plain. He attended grammar school, then the Academia di Belle Arti in Venice before pursuing work in painting, graphic design, advertising, stage design, and engraving.

In the 1960s his work took him across Europe and into Africa, Asia, and America. He also began developing his unique style as a painter. In the 1970s he began teaching, accepting professorships at the UNESCO School in Paris and La Sapienza University in Rome. He later worked as an arts consultant for the College of Architecture at the University of Kentucky, and for the city of Treviso in Italy. In Brussels in 1994 Morago was chosen from 1500 artists to be the “sole representative of Italian art” at the new Council headquarters of the European Union, where he painted large-scale works that do great honour to Italy and to Art. In 1996 he exhibited with César, Vedova and Kabakov under the aegis of UNESCO in Paris, and later, at the invitation of Prince Rainier, at the Sporting Club d’Hiver in Monte Carlo. In 2025 a permanent collection celebrating Morago’s career was installed in Motta di Livenza. 

Morago favored an anti-naturalistic use of color, “...releasing it from the burden of having to convey a perception of reality and according it complete expressive autonomy.” Morago was a restless spirit, and travel was a constant and a source of inspiration throughout his career. “I travel and I paint: what I am looking for is a sense of spiritual recreation through the uniquely Venetian experience of colour …” He continues to paint and remains a towering figure in the Venetian artistic tradition.