The works of artist David Tremlett in the Langhe: a route of around 60 km starting from Santo Stefano Belbo and ending in Verduno.

Do you all know David Tremlett? Surely you have already heard of him: he is one of the best-known British artists on the contemporary art scene.

He is an artist-traveller, and Italy is the country he cannot give up. “Italy is a sweet land of sounds and colours,” says Tremlett, “where Giotto and Piero della Francesca painted the most extraordinary walls in history.

And the love between the artist and the Langhe and Roero territory has been going on for more than twenty-five years.

Here is the itinerary we suggest to admire his works in the Langa.

Starting in Alba, one can begin in the hospital of Verduno where a union between the Alba-Bra Hospital Foundation and the artist David Tremlett developed its most recent project, called Verduno #1. You can find it outside the conference room.

“The work I made is called Verduno #1, because most of my works over the last 30-40 years take their title from the place they refer to and then a figure. For example, a recent work I did for Bloomberg in London was titled City Drawing #1,” says David Tremlett.

His drawings refer to architectural form, the use of colour and the balancing of these forms with certain colours.

Following the Sp58 and the Fontanazza road, one arrives at Sol LeWitt and David Tremlett’s famous ‘Barolo Chapel‘, which is now 20 years old.

Ruined, abandoned for years and reduced to ruins, the church was renovated by the Ceretto family in the late 1990s and has now become an undisputed symbol of the Langhe.

The two masters divide the tasks: Sol LeWitt is in charge of the exterior with a lively play of colours, while David Tremlett is in charge of the interior decoration with a warm and serene colour palette.

After the colourful little church, the next stop is Pedaggera. Here we find the splendid St Michael’s Oratory, where the artist embellished the modern part of the interior in 2020, where Gothic frescoes are combined with his contemporary conceptual art, and another of his works: the Boeri old people’s living room, repainted in 2021 by Tremlett’s assistants, who was curator of the project but was unable to view the work due to the pandemic.

Moving towards Mango, one arrives at Coazzolo, where one can admire the small of Beata Maria Vergine del Carmine, which has been divided into three parts, on which three dominant colours and geometric lines are used, reflecting the panorama.

Arriving in Santo Stefano Belbo, inside the park of the Relais San Maurizio, a refined luxury residence opened in 2002, is a chapel now used for events.

You can admire, by reservation only, the work done in the chapel of the 17th-century monastery on which the relais was built. Here, Tremlett has breathed new life into an ancient religious building, home of the Cistercian monks, with his 2019 work Open space, where the artist has painted the interior walls with shades of colour and geometric shapes that blend with those of the chapel and express the relationship between sign and architecture typical of his work.

David Tremlett in the Langhe, the day ends here.

We have come to the end of this journey. An ‘artistic’ day dedicated to David Tremlett and his most famous works in the Langhe.

Have I intrigued you? Know that you can include some of these visits to his works in a nice Vespa tour or by visiting and tasting some of the area’s most famous wines.

If, on the other hand, you love the outdoors, there’s nothing better than a nice trek in the Langhe with a visit and tasting in a winery, including a stop at the famous colourful little church in Barolo.