Salvatore Rodriguez: Naples and the Female Figure

A dark-haired model lies stretched on a white bed, arms folded behind her head, the pale sheets and warm skin set against a soft green-grey wall, the signature a flourish in red. The panel is small and the handling quick, and it opens our Modern Masters: 20th Century Art sale as lot 1. Salvatore Rodriguez (born 1957) is the youngest painter in the catalogue and the only one still at work.

A Neapolitan figlio d’arte

Rodriguez was born in Naples in 1957 into an artistic family and has taken part in the artistic life of his city while travelling through Italy and Europe. He works in oil on canvas, board and pressed cardboard and describes his own painting as impressionist, modern and in the line of the Macchiaioli, the Tuscan painters of the nineteenth century who built their pictures from patches of light and shade.

The tenderness and sensuality of women

The greater part of his work is devoted to the female figure: reclining nudes, women at rest, portraits, dancers, painted with a rapid, confident brush and, in his own words, an eye for the tenderness and sensuality of the model. The small panels of nudes on white sheets have a distinctive intimacy, the figure set against a few tones of grey-green and white, the paint fresh and unlaboured, the signature usually in red.

An entry point

His paintings are offered through Italian galleries and online auction houses and are held in private collections in Italy, Spain and France. At the estimate of lot 1 they are among the most accessible ways to buy a well-painted contemporary nude in oil. More on his artist page.

At Aurora & Athena

Nu sur le lit blanc (Nude on the White Bed), c. 1990s, oil on board, 20 × 39.5 cm, framed, signed in red at the lower right, is offered on 17 October 2026 with an estimate of 400 – 600 €. Photographs, condition summary and bidding on the lot page.