Appreciation - Dennis Vella

Mario Buhagiar, head, Department of History of Art, University of Malta, writes:

The small but very active community of Maltese artists, together with all those who take an interest in the visual arts, mourn the premature passing away of Dennis Vella.

For the past few years, Dennis was curator of modern and contemporary art at the National Museum of Fine Arts. This was a post he well deserved for, in the course of his short but very active life, he earned for himself a solid reputation as a connoisseur and art critic and this won him general respect.

He was not himself an artist but the encouragement he gave to practising artists, both established ones and others at the start of their career, and the exhibitions he painstakingly curated, secured him a place of high esteem in the artistic fraternity.

His absence from the contemporary art scene leaves a void that will be difficult to fill.

Dennis was one of the first students in the history of art classes at the University of Malta that I pioneered in 1988. He joined the BA course as a mature student and had a good academic record that encouraged him to register for an MA by research on Maltese artists in Rome in the period between the two world wars.

The thesis he produced has all the necessary qualities of a work of reference and I consider myself lucky to have had the privilege of supervising it. Sadly, it remains unpublished. It may be consulted at the Malta University Library and I strongly recommend it to anyone with an interest the history of Maltese art in 20th century.

In his post-University years, Dennis focused his studies of Antonio Sciortino and established himself as the leading authority on this important Maltese artist who came close to crossing the threshold of greatness.

He had so much else to contribute and it is a sad reflection that he is now unable to do it. We are all very much the poorer.