Renato Guttuso is one of those few artists longing for a union between art and life. In fact, as Gillo Pontecorvo and Giuliano Montaldo do in their movies, Guttuso finds in his way of painting an interesting synthesis of formal aspects and social thematics, a refined art which is at the same time intense and touching for the moral and political commitment that reflects and promotes.
Vucciria, 1974
Renato Guttuso was born in 1911, in Bagheria. This city is really important for the artistic education of the painter because there he can suddenly come in contact with the world of art, living among his father's watercolours, Domenico Quattrociocchi's studio and the shop of Emilio Murdolo, a painter of carts. Bagheria will be always a source of inspiration for Guttuso because it contains an extraordinary inventory of images and colours.
Nonetheless, he has different models for his art, French painters, such as Millet, and modern Italian painters, such as Carrą. In 1932, in Milan, at the Galleria del Milione, an exhibition by Guttuso and five other Sicilian artists arouses great among the visitors. In this period Guttuso has the chance to meet and associate with such artists as Mario Mafai, Francesco Trombadori, Corrado Cagli, Pericle Fazzini, Mirko e Afro. In 1933 he writes his first article on Picasso which provokes the intervention of the Fascist censorship and his suspension as a contributer to the Palermo newspaper L'ora. In 1934, at the Galleria del Milione, in Milan, he has a second exhibition with the other artists of the Gruppo dei Quattro, formed in Palermo with Giovanni Barbera, Nino Franchina e Lia Pasqualino Noto. In Milan he makes friends wiht Birolli, Sassu, Manzł, Fontana and with some intellectuals: Salvatore Quasimodo, Raffaele de Grada, Elio Vittorini, Antonio Banfi, Raffaele Carrieri, Edoardo Persico. But the period in which Guttuso lives in Milan is also marked by a depressive crisis due to economic problems that not even the success of the political movement Corrente softens.
Vucciria, detail, 1974 and Crucifixion, 1940-41.
In 1937-39 Guttuso settles permanently in Rome and makes friends with Alberto Moravia, Antonello Trombadori e Mario Alicata. This influences Guttuso's decision to join the PCI, in 1940. In these years Guttuso depicts still life, La fucilazione in campagna (dedicated to the writer Federico Garcķa Lorca), and Fuga dall'Etna (Escape from Etna).
Between 1940 and 1944 Guttuso still portrays his favorite subjects, but he works as well on his most famous work, La crocifissione (Crucifixion) (1940-41). The aim of the painter creating this work is to depict the atrocities of the war and Christ becomes a symbol of human suffering.
In 1943 he leaves Rome for political reasons and participates in the anti-Fascist Resistence. He deals with this event in some drawings in inks obtained from underground printing-houses and entitled Gott mitt Uns. In 1945-50, in Paris, he meets Picasso and they start a long friendship, while in Italy founds the movement Fronte Nuovo delle Arti (New arts Front) together with Birolli, Vedova, Marchiori and the dealer Cairola. It is a a group of artists that promotes the recovery of European art, almost unknown in Italy because of Fascism.
In the Fifties Guttuso shows his paintings at the Venice Biennale. In 1952 La Battaglia di Ponte dell'Ammiraglio (Battle of the Bridge of the Admiral), in 1954 Bolgie Woogie, and in 1956 La Spiaggia, provoking many debates and discussions. Between 1957 and 1965 he contribuites to the most important magazines in Italy and abroad, as a critic of art, and takes part in the debates on Realism. In this period he paints La Discussione (The Discussion) that will be bought by the Tate Gallery of London.
In 1966 he completes the cycle Autobiografia, a series of paintings which forms the nucleus of exhibitions shown in different European countries. In 1974 he paints Vucciria, one of his most famous works, while in 1976 he realizes Caffč Greco.
In 1986 he paints a cycle of paintings dedicated to the subject of the gynaeceum that cultimates in Nella stanza le donne vanno e vengono which will remain unfinished.
Renato Guttuso dies in 1987, After having worked to spread an ideal of art that can deal with social problems and everyday life adopting an elegant formalism and an intense realism.
