Welcome to the brand new Arthive! Discover a full list of new features here.

Renato
Guttuso

1911−1987

Biography and information

Renato Guttuso (Italian: Renato Guttuso) (December 26, 1911 or January 2, 1912, Bagheria, Italy - January 18, 1987, Rome, Italy) - Italian painter, graphic artist, honorary member of the USSR Academy of Arts (1962).

Born in a suburb of Palermo Bagheria. Father Joachino Guttuso Fazulo was a surveyor. Renato received his first drawing lessons from a rural craftsman who painted wagons. Studying at the Lyceum, he attended the courses of futurist artist Pippo Rizzo. In 1931, Guttuso participated in the Quadriennall, a four-year-old exhibition of Italian artists in Palermo, where two of his paintings were criticized. In 1930 he entered the Faculty of Law at the University of Palermo. A year later, he left school and moved to Rome. He worked as a restorer in the Borghese Gallery. In Rome, Guttuso draws closer to artists opposed to the Mussolini regime. His article on Picasso (1933) in the Ora newspaper entailed censorship charges of violating public safety. Included (1938) in the art association "Corrente" ("Current"), which publishes the eponymous literary and artistic magazine. In 1940, Guttuso joined the Communist Party of Italy (since 1956 - in the Central Committee of the Communist Party).

During the Second World War, Guttuso created one of his most famous works - “The Crucifixion”: “I want to write this execution of Christ as today's scene ... Christ as a symbol of all who today suffer insults, prisons, and executions for their ideas.” The picture echoes the “Guernica” - in the center of the composition is the figure of a horse - a direct quote from Picasso's masterpiece [1]. The painting "Crucifixion" was exhibited at the exhibition "Premium Bergamo" (1942) and caused discontent of the Vatican. Since 1943, Guttuso has been a member of the Resistance movement as part of the partisan brigade of the South.

In 1945, together with Pericles Fazzini, Antonio Korpora and several other artists, he founded the Neo-Cubist group

In 1946, he was one of the leaders of the New Front of the Arts group (Fronte Nuovo delle Arti). The New Art Front brought together artists from various fields who proclaimed their goal to create new artistic values. In 1948, due to disagreements between realists and abstractionists, the union broke up. Guttuso left artists who profess a realistic style of depiction.

Guttuso is a passionate man, a true southerner. Until today, he seeks himself: he wants to combine Truth with beauty, and communism with the art that he loves; he enthusiastically inquired about Moscow and prayed for Picasso; he painted large canvases on political topics and small still lifes (his potatoes in a wicker basket were especially fascinated). I. Ehrenburg “People, years, life”

Guttuso's first solo exhibition was held in London in 1950. In 1951, he won the World Peace Council award for the series of drawings “God be with us!” Dedicated to the death of 320 hostages at Foss Adreatine in 1944. This series was published as a separate book in 1945.