The memorial exhibition Traces of Dreams (Segni come sogni) includes Vasco Bendini’s paintings from 2004 to 2012.

Bendini, who was born in Bologna in 1922 and died in Rome in 2015, studied with notable Italian artist Giorgio Morandi (1890–1964) at the Academy of Fine Arts in Bologna. He is considered a pioneer of Arte Informale, a group of artists that emerged in the wake of WWII whose abstract compositions reflected the instability and dysfunction of war. Deeply influenced by international politics, he made several works in direct response to acts of political aggression. His painting evolved from the strong and dramatic gestures of his 1950s canvases to the fluid and graceful compositions of the past 10 years. Spare in palette, the latter works possess a sense of luminescence, as patches of black and grey are interrupted by shards of glowing white or sweeps of striking hues.

Bendini’s use of color is partly metaphorical. His blacks express the endless disharmony of human relations, while his whites embody “images of expectation,” he said. These hopeful moments resemble rays of sunlight passing overhead that have temporarily alit on darker surfaces. His work is in the collections of numerous institutions, such as the Museo d’Arte Contemporanea di Roma, the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna, Rome; the Museo d’Arte Moderna, Bologna; Princeton University Art Museum, Princeton, New Jersey; and the Cincinnati Art Museum.