Born in Milan in 1927, Tadini earned a degree in literature and soon distinguished himself among the most vibrant voices in the cultural debate of the post-war period. In 1947, he made his debut in “Il Politecnico” by Elio Vittorini, followed by intense critical and theoretical activity on art. In 1963, his first novel “Le armi l’amore” was published, followed by “L’opera” in 1980, “La lunga notte” in 1987, “L’insieme delle cose” in 1991, and “La tempesta” in 1993. From the fifties onwards, he combined his literary work with painting, and he first exhibited in 1961 at the Galleria del Cavallino in Venice, where the painter Tancredi Parmeggiani purchased one of his works. From the outset, he developed his work into cycles (Vita di Voltaire, L’uomo dell’organizzazione, Color & Co., Archeologia, Città italiane, Profughi). Throughout his career, Tadini developed a unique artistic style that blended surrealist and metaphysical elements with a profound reflection on literature and philosophy. The style is characterized by the fusion of figurative and abstract elements, where forms and human figures merge into a symbolic universe full of meaning. While American pop art was celebrated at the XXXII Venice Biennale in 1964, Tadini turned to the stylistic-narrative formulations of British pop by Richard Hamilton, David Hockney, Eduardo Paolozzi, and Ronald B. Kitaj. Until the mid-seventies, he formulated an original version of pop language, where outlined contours and spread color for sharp surfaces conveyed symbolism rich in references to Freudian psychoanalysis. He attended classes at the Academy of Fine Arts in Brera and frequented the Bar Giamaica, a crucible of intellectuals and artists, forming deep friendships with painters Alfredo Chighine, Alik Cavaliere, Cesare Peverelli, the brothers Guido and Sandro Somarè, and Valerio Adami, with whom he inaugurated the first exhibition at Studio Marconi in 1965. Towards the end of the decade, he became one of the most sensitive voices for the renewal of figurative painting. As a critic, he introduced the work of artists most akin to him in various catalogs, such as Chighine (Il Milione gallery, 1958), Adami (Naviglio gallery, 1959), Alik Cavaliere (Bergamini gallery, 1959), and others.
His constant reflection on the topicality of historical avant-gardes inspired central cycles of the seventies, where elements taken from advertising graphics and comics coexisted with the ironic juxtaposition of objet trouvé of Dadaist derivation. Tadini dedicated Paesaggio di Malevič (1971) to Suprematism, while de Chirico’s metaphysics was central to works such as Archeologia (1972-1973), Ulisse & Co. (1973), and Magasins Réunis (1973).
In 1978, Tadini exhibited at the Venice Biennale the large cycle entitled Museum of Man (1974), and in the 1982 edition, the series Disordine di un corpo classico which inaugurates a phase of his work characterized by the alteration of traditional forms of the human body. From 1992, he began an intense collaboration with the Corriere della Sera as an art critic and editorialist.
In 1993, he won the Strega Prize with “La tempesta,” a novel imbued with literary and art-historical references that marks its full maturation in an expressionist sense. Tadini also served as president of the Academy of Fine Arts in Brera from 1997 to 2000.
He passed away in Milan on September 25, 2002. In 2008, his son Francesco Tadini and journalist Melina Scalise founded the Spazio Tadini association in his honor, incorporating the artist’s studio into the family’s typography spaces. In 2015, Spazio Tadini became a House Museum in the Storie milanesi circuit, which collects 15 places in the city where characters (artists, writers, designers) who have contributed artistically and culturally to the city have lived.