By Paul Varnell

Contributing writer

The Italian-American artist Romolo Roberti (1896-1988) came to the U.S. with his father in 1911 but when his father returned to Italy young Roberti decided to stay and pursue a career in art rather than acceding to his family’s wishes that he become a priest. Finding temporary support with Italian-American families, he eventually moved to Ithaca, N.Y., where he found a mentor and teacher in a Cornell professor who gave him painting lessons while Roberti worked for the university as a landscaper and handyman.

In 1922 he moved to Chicago where he took classes at the School of the Art Institute, supporting himself as a painter and decorator when he ran out of money. In 1927 he moved into the Tree Studios, a low-cost residence for artists in the Near North area, where he lived until 1933. He also began exhibiting his paintings regularly in group shows and had his first one-man show in 1932.

From 1939-1967 Roberti lived itinerantly, working as a painter and decorator in different areas of the country, painting in his spare time but apparently exhibiting little. In 1967 he moved to Mississippi and lived in a trailer, continuing to paint but exhibiting nothing. Gradually his work faded from the art world consciousness.

Then in 2007 a cache of nearly 250 works was recovered from a decaying lumberyard building near his home, marking the recovery of a significant Chicago artist. A selection of those works, mostly from the 1920s and 1930s, is now on view at Robert Henry Adams Fine Art, Inc.

Roberti worked in several different styles, sometimes simultaneously, from early impressionist-influenced canvases to a kind of social realism popular in the 1930s to still-life paintings and imaginary scenes of a surrealist cast.

Appropriately enough, many of the paintings in this exhibition are of Chicago scenes from the early 1920s, several including the Chicago River. They depict such things as the river passing among tall warehouse-like buildings, a life-saving station at the mouth of the river, a view of the Wrigley Building from the south bank of the river, and its opposite, a view of the south shore from a passageway underneath the Wrigley Building. Perhaps the most engaging piece is “Artist Painting, Chicago River” a riverfront scene with two boats in the river, some medium-height buildings on the other side and an open-air artist dressed in black in the foreground painting the same scene.

These are all slightly hazy in appearance, whether from smoke in the Chicago air or just the influence of the light-suffused impressionist style Roberti adopted early in his career.

Two other Chicago scenes are of the Allerton Hotel on Michigan Avenue from a window or rooftop perspective, and one of Roberti’s favorite types of scenes, “Near North in Winter,” which shows a man trudging across an intersection that has tire tracks but no moving vehicles. Low buildings across the street include a boarded-up store with broken display windows. An informative catalogue essay by Roosevelt University Art History Professor Susan Weininger notes that Roberti liked painting winter scenes and often tried to save money during the summer so he could have his time free to paint during the winter.

Entirely different is a group of clear hard-edged still lifes of fruits and flowers from the late 1920s and early 1930s. The most immediately appealing is “Still Life with Apples and Hibiscus,” with the bright yellow, orange and red apples and blossoms arranged on a sea-foam green backdrop with a black vase behind them for contrast. One of the other still lifes shows that same black vase holding several Hibiscus against the background of Roberti’s own studio in the Tree Studios.

In the late 1920s Roberti began a series of paintings based on Dante’s “Inferno.” Several of the paintings in this exhibition show that general approach even if they are not precisely scenes from Dante. “Judgement Day,” a gloomy painting in dark colors, shows a river of tiny figures emerging from the background, moving across the foreground and toward a fiery pit of bright orange and yellow while lightning flashes above. They are urged on by larger devil figures and an enormous face looms toward he lower left.

Two paintings in bright red, orange and yellow colors depict nudes—one of small females scattered around a fiery landscape watched by two larger figures; the other is of a small nude couple—the male nude is the only one in this exhibit—sitting quietly talking and apparently oblivious of the fire raging around them.

Finally, two fantasy paintings depict exotic architecture with semi-religious themes. “Pagan Ceremony” shows a semicircle of acolytes around a central celebrant who wears a robe and mitre, so Roberti, who had a sly sense of humor, may be implying that Christianity is simply another pagan religion. “Temple of the Sophist” shows people streaming toward the exotic-looking temple, apparently suggesting that people will worship almost anything that is grand and mysterious.

Roberti’s work is attractive and appealing and his range of styles and subject matter is impressive. We are fortunate to have his work recovered for our viewing today.

“Romolo Roberti: An American Original” is at Robert Henry Adams Fine Art, Inc., 715 N. Franklin, until the end of January 2008. Hours: Tues.-Fri. 10 a.m.-5 p.m., Sat. noon-5 p.m.