Lucio Amelio

Lucio Amelio (13 September 1931 – 2 July 1994) was an Italian art dealer, curator, and actor. For decades he contributed to make Naples an international art centre encouraging the dialogue between European and American contemporary arts. Lucio Amelio was born on 13 September 1931 in Via dei Tribunali in Naples. He had four sisters – Marisa, Giuliana, Lina and Anna. Due to the Second World War, his family moved several times and settled in 1944 for twelve years in Resina.After graduating in 1949 from Liceo scientifico, Amelio enrolled in architecture studies at the University of Naples. Amelio quickly established himself as a leading figure in the international contemporary art market from the mid-sixties to the mid-nineties. In 1965 he opened the Modern Art Agency, a gallery in Parco Margherita dedicated to experimental art. In 1969 he opened the Galleria Lucio Amelio in Naples’ Piazza dei Martiri, which hosted exhibitions of artists such as Robert Rauschenberg, Mario Merz, Jannis Kounellis, Keith Haring, Cy Twombly, Dieter Hacker.

In 1980 Amelio introduced Joseph Beuys to Andy Warhol, and later that year he organized the exhibition of portraits "by Beuys, Warhol".

In 1988, Lucio Amelio co-founded an art gallery, Galerie Pièce Unique, in Paris in the middle of Saint-Germain-des-Prés neighborhood.