Renato Guttuso
Bagheria, 1911 – Roma, 1987
Renato Guttuso, whose full name was Aldo Renato Guttuso, was an Italian painter and politician. He was the son of Gioacchino, a land surveyor and amateur watercolorist, and Giuseppina d’Amico. Influenced by his father’s hobby and by visiting the studio of the painter Domenico Quattrociocchi and the workshop of the cart painter Emilio Murdolo, young Renato began, at the age of thirteen, to date and sign his own paintings. These were mostly copies (of 19th-century Sicilian landscape painters, but also French painters such as Millet and contemporary artists like Carrà), though he also produced original portraits. During his adolescence, he began frequenting the studio of the Futurist painter Pippo Rizzo and Palermo’s artistic circles. In 1928, at just seventeen, he took part in his first group exhibition in Palermo. Renato Guttuso was born on St. Stephen’s Day in 1911 in the Sicilian town of Bagheria. His father, Cavaliere Gioacchino Guttuso, was a land surveyor; in the collection donated to the Municipality of Bagheria there are various portraits of him. The first, dating back to 1925, already demonstrates the artist’s precocious genius; others, showing him with ruler and square, emphasize his profession and the admiration Guttuso had for this upright man, passionate about letters and the arts, who had inherited a love of freedom from his own father, Ciro, who fought with Garibaldi. The painter’s bourgeois adolescence was rich in stimuli. The young Guttuso lived in a house near the Valguarnera and Palagonia villas, which he would later depict in his paintings. He drew inspiration from the rocks of Aspra, and between seaside outings and his first loves, he experienced the full crisis of postwar Sicily, when architectural and social decay began to emerge. In Palermo and Bagheria, he witnessed the decline of the nobility and the magnificent 18th-century villas, with their famous grotesque sculptures, and the advance of true urban devastation and power struggles within the local government. These events profoundly affected Guttuso’s temperament, while his family suffered financial hardship due to the hostility of clerical and fascist groups toward his father. Feeling an ever-stronger calling to painting, Guttuso moved to Palermo for high school and later enrolled at the University (where he joined the GUF, the Fascist University Group). He came second in the art criticism category at the 1937 Littoriali della cultura e dell’arte in Naples, and at the 1938 edition in Palermo he presented the painting Execution in the Countryside, dedicated to the poet García Lorca, who had been executed by Franco’s forces. His artistic formation drew on European figurative trends, from Courbet to Van Gogh to Picasso, and led him to Milan and other European travels. In his expressionism, Sicilian themes grew increasingly prominent — lush lemon groves, the Saracen olive tree, and Palinuro, blending myth with island solitude. Works like these, sent in 1931 to the first Quadriennale di Roma, were included in a group exhibition of six Sicilian painters, described by the critic Franco Grasso as “a revelation, a Sicilian affirmation.” Upon returning to Palermo, he opened a studio on Corso Pisani and, together with the painter Lia Pasqualino Noto and sculptors Giovanni Barbera and Nino Franchina, formed the Group of Four. Rejecting all academic conventions, Guttuso sought free, expressive forms and a pure sense of color. He became part of the artistic movement Corrente, which, with its rebellious attitude, opposed official culture and took a strong antifascist stance in its themes during the years of the Spanish Civil War and the buildup to World War II. Guttuso died sadly in isolation after the death of his wife, reportedly reconnecting with the Christian faith, according to testimony from Giulio Andreotti. Archbishop Fiorenzo Angelini, a personal friend, stated in an interview after Guttuso’s death that the painter had rediscovered a sense of spirituality and had received spiritual care in his final days. Upon his death, he donated many works to his hometown, Bagheria, which were collected in the local museum of Villa Cattolica, where he was also buried. His tomb was created by the sculptor Giacomo Manzù. ..
Renato Guttuso, whose full name was Aldo Renato Guttuso, was an Italian painter and politician. He was the son of Gioacchino, a land surveyor and amateur watercolorist, and Giuseppina d’Amico. Influenced by his father’s hobby and by visiting the studio of the painter Domenico Quattrociocchi and the workshop of the cart painter Emilio Murdolo, young Renato began, at the age of thirteen, to date and sign his own paintings. These were mostly copies (of 19th-century Sicilian landscape painters, but also French painters such as Millet and contemporary artists like Carrà), though he also produced original portraits. During his adolescence, he began frequenting the studio of the Futurist painter Pippo Rizzo and Palermo’s artistic circles. In 1928, at just seventeen, he took part in his first group exhibition in Palermo. Renato Guttuso was born on St. Stephen’s Day in 1911 in the Sicilian town of Bagheria. His father, Cavaliere Gioacchino Guttuso, was a land surveyor; in the collection donated to the Municipality of Bagheria there are various portraits of him. The first, dating back to 1925, already demonstrates the artist’s precocious genius; others, showing him with ruler and square, emphasize his profession and the admiration Guttuso had for this upright man, passionate about letters and the arts, who had inherited a love of freedom from his own father, Ciro, who fought with Garibaldi. The painter’s bourgeois adolescence was rich in stimuli. The young Guttuso lived in a house near the Valguarnera and Palagonia villas, which he would later depict in his paintings. He drew inspiration from the rocks of Aspra, and between seaside outings and his first loves, he experienced the full crisis of postwar Sicily, when architectural and social decay began to emerge. In Palermo and Bagheria, he witnessed the decline of the nobility and the magnificent 18th-century villas, with their famous grotesque sculptures, and the advance of true urban devastation and power struggles within the local government. These events profoundly affected Guttuso’s temperament, while his family suffered financial hardship due to the hostility of clerical and fascist groups toward his father. Feeling an ever-stronger calling to painting, Guttuso moved to Palermo for high school and later enrolled at the University (where he joined the GUF, the Fascist University Group). He came second in the art criticism category at the 1937 Littoriali della cultura e dell’arte in Naples, and at the 1938 edition in Palermo he presented the painting Execution in the Countryside, dedicated to the poet García Lorca, who had been executed by Franco’s forces. His artistic formation drew on European figurative trends, from Courbet to Van Gogh to Picasso, and led him to Milan and other European travels. In his expressionism, Sicilian themes grew increasingly prominent — lush lemon groves, the Saracen olive tree, and Palinuro, blending myth with island solitude. Works like these, sent in 1931 to the first Quadriennale di Roma, were included in a group exhibition of six Sicilian painters, described by the critic Franco Grasso as “a revelation, a Sicilian affirmation.” Upon returning to Palermo, he opened a studio on Corso Pisani and, together with the painter Lia Pasqualino Noto and sculptors Giovanni Barbera and Nino Franchina, formed the Group of Four. Rejecting all academic conventions, Guttuso sought free, expressive forms and a pure sense of color. He became part of the artistic movement Corrente, which, with its rebellious attitude, opposed official culture and took a strong antifascist stance in its themes during the years of the Spanish Civil War and the buildup to World War II. Guttuso died sadly in isolation after the death of his wife, reportedly reconnecting with the Christian faith, according to testimony from Giulio Andreotti. Archbishop Fiorenzo Angelini, a personal friend, stated in an interview after Guttuso’s death that the painter had rediscovered a sense of spirituality and had received spiritual care in his final days. Upon his death, he donated many works to his hometown, Bagheria, which were collected in the local museum of Villa Cattolica, where he was also buried. His tomb was created by the sculptor Giacomo Manzù. ..