Renato Guttuso (26 December 1911 – 18 January 1987) was an Italian painter and politician. His best-known works include ''Flight from Etna'' (1938–39), ''Crucifixion'' (1941) and ''La Vucciria'' (1974). Guttuso also designed for the theatre (including sets and costumes for ''
Histoire du Soldat
' (''The Soldier's Tale'') is a theatrical work "to be read, played, and danced" () by three actors and one or several dancers, accompanied by a septet of instruments. Conceived by Igor Stravinsky and Swiss writer C. F. Ramuz, the piece was base ...
'', Rome, 1940) and did illustrations for books. Those for
Elizabeth David
Elizabeth David CBE (born Elizabeth Gwynne, 26 December 1913 – 22 May 1992) was a British cookery writer. In the mid-20th century she strongly influenced the revitalisation of home cookery in her native country and beyond with articles and bo ...
’s ''Italian Food'' (1954),
[Hamilton, Adrian (28 February 2011]
"Past masters of Futurism"
''The Independent'', review of gallery show of Alberto della Ragione's collection of Italian paintings at the Estorick collection, from the 1930s to the 1950s, p. 18 Review section introduced him to many in the English-speaking world. A fierce anti-Fascist, "he developed out of
Expressionism
Expressionism is a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Northern Europe around the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it rad ...
and the harsh light of his native land to paint landscapes and social commentary."
[
]
Biography
Introduction
He was born in Bagheria, near Palermo
Palermo ( , ; scn, Palermu , locally also or ) is a city in southern Italy, the capital (political), capital of both the autonomous area, autonomous region of Sicily and the Metropolitan City of Palermo, the city's surrounding metropolitan ...
in Sicily
(man) it, Siciliana (woman)
, population_note =
, population_blank1_title =
, population_blank1 =
, demographics_type1 = Ethnicity
, demographics1_footnotes =
, demographi ...
, but from 1937 lived and worked largely in Rome
, established_title = Founded
, established_date = 753 BC
, founder = King Romulus (legendary)
, image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg
, map_caption ...
. In his youth he joined the ''Gruppo universitario fascista'', but later he became an anti-fascist
Fascism is a far-right, Authoritarianism, authoritarian, ultranationalism, ultra-nationalist political Political ideology, ideology and Political movement, movement,: "extreme militaristic nationalism, contempt for electoral democracy and pol ...
and atheist. He joined the banned Italian Communist Party
The Italian Communist Party ( it, Partito Comunista Italiano, PCI) was a communist political party in Italy.
The PCI was founded as ''Communist Party of Italy'' on 21 January 1921 in Livorno by seceding from the Italian Socialist Party (PSI). ...
(PCI) in 1940 and left Rome to become an active participant in the partisan struggle from 1943. He was also an opponent to the Mafia
"Mafia" is an informal term that is used to describe criminal organizations that bear a strong similarity to the original “Mafia”, the Sicilian Mafia and Italian Mafia. The central activity of such an organization would be the arbitration of d ...
. In 1972 Guttuso was awarded the Lenin Peace Prize
The International Lenin Peace Prize (russian: международная Ленинская премия мира, ''mezhdunarodnaya Leninskaya premiya mira)'' was a Soviet Union award named in honor of Vladimir Lenin. It was awarded by a pane ...
. In 1976 he was elected to the Italian Senate
The Senate of the Republic ( it, Senato della Repubblica), or simply the Senate ( it, Senato), is the upper house of the bicameral Italian Parliament (the other being the Chamber of Deputies). The two houses together form a perfect bicameral sy ...
as a PCI representative for the Sicilian constituency of Sciacca
Sciacca (; Greek: ; Latin: Thermae Selinuntinae, Thermae Selinuntiae, Thermae, Aquae Labrodes and Aquae Labodes) is a town and ''comune'' in the province of Agrigento on the southwestern coast of Sicily, southern Italy. It has views of the Medit ...
.
Childhood
Renato Guttuso's father, Gioacchino Guttuso, was a land surveyor
Surveying or land surveying is the technique, profession, art, and science of determining the terrestrial two-dimensional or three-dimensional positions of points and the distances and angles between them. A land surveying professional is ca ...
and amateur watercolourist. There are a number of portraits of Gioacchino in the collection donated to the mayor of Bagheria. Renato Guttuso began signing and dating his works at the age of thirteen. Guttuso lived close to a house amongst the Valguarnera villas and Palagonia
Palagonia ( Sicilian: ''Palagunìa'', Latin: ''Palica'') is a ''comune'' (municipality) in the Metropolitan City of Catania in the Italian region Sicily, located about southeast of Palermo and about southwest of Catania. Palagonia borders the ...
, which he would soon represent in paintings inspired by the cliffs of Aspra.
In Palermo and in Bagheria Guttuso observed the dereliction of the 18th-century villas of the nobility, abandoned to decay as a consequence of political infighting within the municipal chambers. At the same time, his family suffered a period of economic stress because of the hostility shown by Fascists
Fascism is a far-right, authoritarian, ultra-nationalist political ideology and movement,: "extreme militaristic nationalism, contempt for electoral democracy and political and cultural liberalism, a belief in natural social hierarchy and th ...
and clergy towards his father.
Guttuso went to Palermo for high school studies, and then to the University
A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, t ...
, where his development was modelled on the European figurative trends of the day, from Courbet
Jean Désiré Gustave Courbet ( , , ; 10 June 1819 – 31 December 1877) was a French painter who led the Realism movement in 19th-century French painting. Committed to painting only what he could see, he rejected academic convention and t ...
to Van Gogh
Vincent Willem van Gogh (; 30 March 185329 July 1890) was a Dutch Post-Impressionist painter who posthumously became one of the most famous and influential figures in Western art history. In a decade, he created about 2,100 artworks, inclu ...
and to Picasso
Pablo Ruiz Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist and Scenic design, theatre designer who spent most of his adult life in France. One of the most influential artists of the 20th ce ...
. In the early part of the 1930s, Guttuso was a frequent visitor to the studio of one of the most prolific futuristic painters, Pippo Rizzo.[Archivi Guttuso biography]
guttuso.com His works opened doors for him in Milan
Milan ( , , Lombard: ; it, Milano ) is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, and the second-most populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of about 1.4 million, while its metropolitan city h ...
and to further travel throughout Europe.
As Guttuso's expressionism became stronger he painted more scenes of nature in flower, lemon trees, saracen olive trees, all in an environment suspended between myth and island insularity, so that, when sent to the Quadriennale expo of 1931, he joined a collective of six Sicilian painters, acclaimed by the critic Franco Grasso as a "disclosure, a Sicilian affirmation". Back in Palermo Guttuso opened a studio in Pisani street and together with the painter Lia Pasqualino and the sculptors Barbera and Nino Franchina, formed the ''Gruppo dei Quattro'' (The Group of Four).
Rejection of the academic principles and social art
Guttuso became a member of an artistic movement named "Corrente". The movement stood for free and open attitudes, in opposition to the official culture, and chose a strong anti-fascist position in thematic choices through the years of the Spanish Civil War
The Spanish Civil War ( es, Guerra Civil Española)) or The Revolution ( es, La Revolución, link=no) among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War ( es, Cuarta Guerra Carlista, link=no) among Carlists, and The Rebellion ( es, La Rebelión, lin ...
.
In Milan, where he stayed for three years, Guttoso was part of ''Corrente di Vita ''Corrente di Vita'' was a biweekly Italian culture magazine published between 1938 and 1940.
The Corrente Magazine
In 1938 artist Ernesto Treccani founded the magazine ''Vita Giovanile'' with the financial backing of his father, Senator Giovanni ...
''. Here he developed his "social" art, his moral and political commitment being visible in paintings such as ''Fucilazione in Campagna'' (1938), dedicated to the writer García Lorca
García or Garcia may refer to:
People
* García (surname)
* Kings of Pamplona/Navarre
** García Íñiguez of Pamplona, king of Pamplona 851/2–882
** García Sánchez I of Pamplona, king of Pamplona 931–970
** García Sánchez II of Pam ...
, and ''Escape from Etna''.
Moving to Rome, Guttuso opened a study in Via Margutta
Via Margutta is a narrow street in the centre of Rome, near Piazza del Popolo, accessible from Via del Babuino in the ancient Campo Marzio neighborhood also known as ''"the foreigner's quarter"''. Mount Pincio is nearby. Via Margutta original ...
where, because of his exuberance, his friend Marino Mazzacurati
Renato Marino Mazzacurati (22 July 1907 – 18 September 1969) was an Italian painter and sculptor belonging to the modern movement of the ''Scuola romana (Roman School)'', of eclectic styles and able within his career span to represent the a ...
nicknamed him "Unbridled". He lived close by to significant artists of the time: Mario Mafai, Corrado Cagli
Corrado Cagli (1910–1976) was an Italian painter of Jewish heritage, who lived in the United States during World War II.
Life
Cagli was born in Ancona but he moved with his family to Rome in 1915 at the age of five.
In 1927, he made his ar ...
, Antonello Trombadori, keeping also in contact with the group from Milan of Giacomo Manzù
Giacomo Manzù, pseudonym of Giacomo Manzoni (22 December 1908 – 17 January 1991), was an Italian sculptor.
Biography
Manzù was born in Bergamo. His father was a shoemaker. Other than a few evening art classes, he was self-taught in s ...
and Aligi Sassu
Aligi Sassu (17 July 1912 – 17 July 2000) was an Italian painter and sculptor.
Biography
Aligi Sassu was born in Milan, Lombardy. He was the son of Lina Pedretti (from Parma, Emilia) and Antonio Sassu (from Sassari, Sardinia). His father ...
.
"Crocifissione" ("Crucifixion") is the painting for which he is best remembered. At the time it was derided by the clergy, who labelled Guttuso a "pictor diabolicus" ("a devilish painter").[ The fascists also denounced it for depicting the horrors of war under a religious cover. Guttuso wrote in his diary: "it is the symbol of all those who endure insults, jail, torture for their ideas". Guttuso also spoke publicly about "The Crocifissione", saying "this is a time of war. I wish to paint the torment of Christ as a contemporary scene... as a symbol of all those who, because of their ideas, endure outrage, imprisonment and torment".][
He did not stop working during the years of ]World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
, his work ranging from landscape glimpses of the Gulf of Palermo to a collection of drawings entitled ''Massacri'' (''Massacres''), that clandestinely denounced slaughters such as the Fosse Ardeatine
The Ardeatine massacre, or Fosse Ardeatine massacre ( it, Eccidio delle Fosse Ardeatine), was a mass killing of 335 civilians and political prisoners carried out in Rome on 24 March 1944 by German occupation troops during the Second World War ...
.
In 1945 Guttuso, along with artists Birolli, Marchiori, Vedova and others, founded the "Fronte Nuovo delle Arti Fronte Nuovo delle Arti was an Italian artistic movement active in Venice, Rome and Milan in the years following WWII (1946 to 1950). It is considered to be part of the post-cubism movement.
History
"Fronte Nuovo delle Arti" was founded in Septem ...
' (New Arts Front) as a vessel for the promotion of the work of those artists who had previously been bound by fascist rule. During this time, he also met and befriended Pablo Picasso
Pablo Ruiz Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist and Scenic design, theatre designer who spent most of his adult life in France. One of the most influential artists of the 20th ce ...
. Their friendship would last until Picasso's death in 1973. Socio-political themes dominated Guttuso's work during this area, depicting the day-to-day lives of peasants and blue-collar workers. In 1950, he was given the World Council of Peace Prize in Warsaw. [ Guttuso later received the Lenin Piece Prize in 1972.
]
Later career
In 1938 Guttuso met Mimise Dotti, whom he married in 1956. Poet Pablo Neruda
Ricardo Eliécer Neftalí Reyes Basoalto (12 July 1904 – 23 September 1973), better known by his pen name and, later, legal name Pablo Neruda (; ), was a Chilean poet-diplomat and politician who won the 1971 Nobel Prize in Literature. Nerud ...
was a witness at their wedding. [ Mimise would become his confidant and model. After the liberation of Italy from Nazi Germans he finished "Muratori in riposo" ("Workers resting"), an artwork in china ink and watercolour of 1945, a symbol of rebirth of which ]Pier Paolo Pasolini
Pier Paolo Pasolini (; 5 March 1922 – 2 November 1975) was an Italian poet, filmmaker, writer and intellectual who also distinguished himself as a journalist, novelist, translator, playwright, visual artist and actor. He is considered one of ...
wrote in 1962:
The shapes of ten workers
emerge white over white masonry
the noon is that of the summer.
But the humiliated flesh
projects a shadow; is the disarranged order
of the white colors, that is faithfully followed
by the black ones. The noon is a peaceful one.
In the following years Guttuso painted "Peasant Who Hoes" (1947) and "Peasants of Sicily" (1951) in which pictorial language became clear and free of all superfluous elements. Guttuso wrote that those were preparatory sketches for "Occupation of uncultivated lands of Sicily", exhibited in the Venice Biennale
The Venice Biennale (; it, La Biennale di Venezia) is an international cultural exhibition hosted annually in Venice, Italy by the Biennale Foundation. The biennale has been organised every year since 1895, which makes it the oldest of ...
in 1950, asserting:
I believe that these are legacies to my deeper and remote inspiration. To my childhood, to my people, my peasants, my father land-surveyor, the garden of lemons and oranges, to the gardens of the latitude familiar to my eye and my feeling, where I was born. Sicilian peasants who hold the primary position in my heart, because I am one of them, whose faces come in front of my eyes no matter what I do, Sicilian peasants so important in the history of Italy.
In 1950 Guttuso joined the project of the Verzocchi collection (in the civic Pinacoteca of Forlì), sending a self-portrait, and the works "Sicilian labourer", "Bagheria on the Gulf of Palermo" and "Battle of the Bridge of the Admiral". In the latter he depicted his grandfather Ciro as a Garibaldi
Giuseppe Maria Garibaldi ( , ;In his native Ligurian language, he is known as ''Gioxeppe Gaibado''. In his particular Niçard dialect of Ligurian, he was known as ''Jousé'' or ''Josep''. 4 July 1807 – 2 June 1882) was an Italian general, patr ...
ne soldier. Guttuso also painted a series from life about the fight of the peasants for the occupation of lands, the zolfatari, or glimpses of landscape between cactus and prickly pears, as well as portraits of men of culture like Nino Garajo
Nino or Niño may refer to:
*Nino (name)
*Niño (name)
* Antonin Scalia, American Supreme Court justice whose nickname was "Nino"
*El Niño, a climate pattern in the tropical Pacific Ocean
*NINO, an abbreviation for National Insurance number in th ...
and Bruno Caruso
Bruno Caruso (; 8 August 1927 – 4 November 2018) was an influential Italian artist, graphic designer and writer who spent much of his adult life working in Rome.
Caruso's work focused on the moral, political and ethical flaws of the 20th ...
.
Fascinated by Dante
Dante Alighieri (; – 14 September 1321), probably baptized Durante di Alighiero degli Alighieri and often referred to as Dante (, ), was an Italian poet, writer and philosopher. His ''Divine Comedy'', originally called (modern Italian: '' ...
's model, in 1961 he made a series of colour drawings, published in 1970, as ''Il Dante di Guttuso'', depicting the characters of Hell as examples of human history, confirming the versatility of his talent. In the late 1960s and 1970s he completed a suite of paintings devoted to the feminine figure, a motif that became as dominant in his painting as it was in his life: "Donne stanze paesaggi, oggetti" (1967) was followed by a series of portraits of Marta Marzotto, his preferred muse of many years. His most famous "palermitano" painting is the "Vucciria" (the name of Palermo's market), in which, with raw and bloody realism, he expressed one of the many spirits of the Sicilian city.
Mimise Dotti-Guttuso died on 6 October 1986. Guttuso was soon to follow his wife. He died in Rome of lung cancer at the age of 75 on 18 January 1987. On his deathbed, he allegedly embraced again the Christian
Christians () are people who follow or adhere to Christianity, a monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. The words ''Christ'' and ''Christian'' derive from the Koine Greek title ''Christós'' (Χρι ...
faith with which he had been critical. However, there are doubts as to what really happened—in his last months, when he was bedridden, a circle of politicians and priests excluded his oldest friends from his villa. He donated many of his works to his hometown Bagheria, which are now housed in the museum of the Villa Cattolica.
After speculation about who would be the rightful owner of the painter's work, two prosecutors were appointed to settle the dispute between Guttuso's nephew, his adopted son (who had been adopted only four months before Guttuso's death, was 32 years old, and already had a natural father), his longtime lady friend Marta Marzotto, Rome's Museum of Modern Art, along with an assortment of other slighted acquaintances to high-ranking government and church officials.[Schmetzer, Uli (10 February 1987]
"Artist's Death as Controversial as His Life."
''Chicago Tribune''
File:Paolo Monti - Serie fotografica (Varese, 1961) - BEIC 6328459.jpg
File:Paolo Monti - Servizio fotografico (Roma, 1969) - BEIC 6363483.jpg
File:Paolo Monti - Servizio fotografico (Italia, 1961) - BEIC 6336573.jpg
File:Paolo Monti - Servizio fotografico (Italia, 1962) - BEIC 6361556.jpg
File:Paolo Monti - Servizio fotografico (Roma, 1969) - BEIC 6341403.jpg
File:Paolo Monti - Servizio fotografico (Roma, 1969) - BEIC 6363480.jpg
File:Paolo Monti - Servizio fotografico (Torino, 1961) - BEIC 6336688.jpg
File:Paolo Monti - Servizio fotografico (Varese, 1961) - BEIC 6328461.jpg
File:Paolo Monti - Servizio fotografico (Varese, 1961) - BEIC 6336754.jpg
File:Paolo Monti - Servizio fotografico (Bologna, 1969) - BEIC 6362112.jpg
References
External links
Review of a 2003/2004 exhibition.
On a 2005 show relating Guttuso to Alberto Moravia
Alberto Moravia ( , ; born Alberto Pincherle ; 28 November 1907 – 26 September 1990) was an Italian novelist and journalist. His novels explored matters of modern sexuality, social alienation and existentialism. Moravia is best known for his d ...
, Elio Vittorini
Elio Vittorini (; 23 July 1908 – 12 February 1966) was an Italian writer and novelist. He was a contemporary of Cesare Pavese and an influential voice in the modernist school of novel writing. His best-known work is the anti-fascist novel '' Co ...
, and Pier Paolo Pasolini.
* Review of the exhibitio
Guttuso. Passione e realtà
(Parma, 2010)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Guttuso, Renato
1911 births
1987 deaths
People from Bagheria
20th-century Italian painters
20th-century male artists
Italian male painters
Italian watercolourists
Italian resistance movement members
Italian Communist Party politicians
Lenin Peace Prize recipients
Painters from Sicily
20th-century Italian politicians
Italian contemporary artists
Politicians from the Province of Palermo