TIRANA, May 7 – Maks Velo, artist, writer, architect, and intellectual, died on 7 May 2020. He was born on 31 August 1935 in Paris.
His family later returned to Albania, where he graduated in civil engineering from the Polytechnic Institute of Tirana in 1957. Between 1960 and 1973, he designed social buildings, roads, and parks in Tirana and other cities.
However, authorities criticised him in 1973 over alleged “foreign influences”. The situation escalated in 1975, and in 1978 he was arrested and sentenced to 10 years in prison.
He spent most of his sentence in Spaç prison and in forced labour camps in northern Albania. After eight years, he was released in 1986. During his imprisonment, authorities destroyed his artistic collection, describing it as “decadent”.
Following his exoneration in 1991, Velo returned to public life and resumed work in art, architecture, literature, and essay writing. He participated in group exhibitions in Tirana, Alexandria, Moscow, Bucharest, Italy, Greece, and the United States.
Later, he held 37 solo exhibitions between 1991 and 2004 across Albania, Europe, and the United States. His literary output included poetry, short stories, novels, and essays. His autobiographical work “Kohë antishenjë (Time Against Signs)” was published in 2000.
Scholar Josif Papagjoni described Velo as a pioneer of Albanian modern art, a strong voice of free thought, and a key figure in the development of modern visual arts and language in Albania.
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