Background
Santomaso was born in Venice, Italy, on September 26, 1907. He was the son of a goldsmith.
Dorsoduro, 423, 30123 Venezia VE, Italy
Giuseppe Santomaso studied at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Venezia between 1932 and 1934.
Dorsoduro, 423, 30123 Venezia VE, Italy
Giuseppe Santomaso studied at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Venezia between 1932 and 1934.
Santomaso was born in Venice, Italy, on September 26, 1907. He was the son of a goldsmith.
Giuseppe Santomaso studied at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Venezia between 1932 and 1934.
Santomaso started his work in graphics in 1938. He travelled first to the Netherlands and in 1939 he went to Paris, where the works of Matisse, Braque, Bonnard and Picasso had a great influence on him. Giuseppe Santomaso took part in the Quadriennale of Rome in 1943 and produced illustrations for Paul Eluard’s Grand Air in 1945.
In 1946 Giuseppe Santomaso became a founding member of the Nuova secessione artistica italiana, which was later known under the name Fronte Nuovo delle Arti. It was a group of anti-fascist artists. It was during this period that the artist's early research led to abstraction. From 1948 till 1950 his paintings revealed an advance of colour.
The art of Santomaso is based on the use of transparencies, the automatic gesture, and colour vibration. The artist's colour palette corresponded the tradition of Venetian painting and gave his oeuvre a new and vibrant essence, mixed with poetry.
From 1957 to 1974 Giuseppe Santomaso taught at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Venezia. In 1962 he travelled to Brazil. Santomaso contributed lithographs to On Angle, a book of Ezra Pound’s poetry published in 1971.
He participated in a number of personal and collective exhibitions, for instance, he participated in Documenta in Kassel (1955, 1959 and 1964), the Biennial of São Paulo (1961), the Tokyo Biennial (1967) and the Venice Biennial. His solo exhibit was held at the Joan Miro Foundation in Barcelona in 1979. Many retrospectives of his paintings were held, including those at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam and Brussels in 1960, Hamburg and Berlin in 1965-1966, Venice in 1982, as well as in Locarno in 1990.
Giuseppe Santomaso was a distinguished artist of the 20th century. His works were actively exhibited not only in his native Italy but abroad as well. For instance, he held a number of shows in such countries as Germany, the Netherlands, Japan, Belgium, etc. In 1983 Santomaso received an Antonio Feltrinelli Prize for his artistic contribution.
Impedimento Neo
Natura morta alla frutta
Dall'alto al Basso
Untitled
Ommagio Al Crocifisso De Cimabue
Il rosso sopravvive
Untitled
Fuori il giallo
Vento sulle colline venete
Spazio azzurro grigio
Untitled
Incanto
Komposition
Blue Space
Struttura marina
Bianco e nero di Spagna
Ricordo Verde
Lettera a Palladio No. 1
Cracovia
La Porta Bianca n. 2
La Graticola
Untitled
Venezia
Lettera a Palladio
Untitled
Timbri del colore n. 8
Figure in un interno
Dai concerti di Arzignano (Strawinsky)
Spazio bruno
Sera Romana
Secret Life (Vita Segreta)
The artist was known to be a member of the movement "Corrente" that developed in Milan between 1938 and 1943. In 1946 he joined Nuova Secessione Artistica Italiana, later known as Fronte Nuovo delle Arti. Giuseppe Santomaso was a member of the Group of Eight along with Renato Birolli, Emilio Vedova, Giulio Turcato, Antonio Corpora, Ennio Morlotti, Afro Basaldella and Mattia Moreni.
