Lin Delija “between the sacred and the profane”

TIRANA, Sept. 16 – An exhibition by renowned Franciscan Albanian painter Lin Delija who spent his adult life in Italy escaping the country’s communist regime since its beginning has opened at the National Arts Gallery as part of events in the frame of the historic visit of Pope Francis to Albania on September 21.
The “Between the sacred and the profane” exhibition showcasing paintings and drawings by Delija is curated by architect Gjon Radovani, also the deputy Tourism and Urban Development Minister and a founder of the Art Union Association which is co-organizing the event with the Ministry of Culture and the National Art Gallery.
The exhibition which is scheduled to remain open until October 5, 2014 will feature works from the collections of the Franciscan Province in Shkodra, the Art Union Association in Tirana, the National Art Gallery and private collections.
“The exhibition will showcase for the first time the personal wardrobe of Lin Delija and an umbrella signed by the artist himself. Lin Delija’s painting is sincere and powerful, featuring a special world of an artist who left his own country,” said Artan Shabani, the director of the National Gallery at a press conference ahead of the exhibition’s opening.
Gjon Radovani, the curator of the exhibition, said the idea for the exhibition emerged from Pope Francis’ comments that he is visiting Albania as a country of martyrdom and coexistence.
“Lin Delija returns with his paintings, unfortunately posthumously, but symbolizing the journey to freedom and remembrance he left back in Albania. In Lin Delija, we can find the sacred in the profane and profane in the sacred. His paintings are dedicated to the spiritual and this is noticed both in the religious martyrs and even nudes which are very spiritual,” said Radovani.
Delija’s latest exhibition in June 2010 organized by the Lin Delija Cultural Association in Italy featured for the first time his contemporary artworks from private and public collections bringing paintings of religious, political and social themes created during his stay in Italy until 1994 when he passed away.
In 2010, Lin Delija was posthumously decorated with the “Nation’s honour” presidential order.
In 1945, soon after the communist regime had taken over, 19-year-old Delija was faced with the choice of serving in the army or deserting, which entailed the risk of being sentenced to death by hanging. After a series of mishaps that crossed his path as he fled, he was finally able to refine his artistic talents while studying at the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb, Croatia.
Following a community of Albanian refugees, he ended up in Rome, where he frequented the Academy of Fine Arts. At the age of thirty-four he moved to Antrodoco, Italy, where he carried on his work, painting canvases with both sacred and profane subjects, with a realistic, even crude style at times, constantly emphasizing the spirit’s incorruptible superiority over the fragility of the flesh.
Delija died of a stroke in Rome on 9 April 1994.