Piazza Marina, 61, 90133 Palermo PA, Italy
Guttuso studied fine arts at the University of Palermo.
Piazza Marina, 61, 90133 Palermo PA, Italy
Guttuso studied fine arts at the University of Palermo.
Guttuso was born in Bagheria, Italy, on December 26, 1911. He was the son of Gioacchino Guttuso, a land-surveyor and amateur watercolourist, and Giuseppina d'Amico. Due to disagreements with their own town, his parents managed to register their son's birth only on January 2, 1912, in Palermo.
Renato Guttuso showed extraordinary talent as a painter at a very early age. He started putting dates and signatures on his works like professionals by the time he was thirteen. His earliest paintings were created in 1925 and his work was inspired by his surroundings. During this time he mainly produced copies of 19th-century Sicilian landscapes painted on wood.
His family suffered a period of economic stress because of the enmity shown by Fascists and clergy towards his father. Guttuso went for high school studies in Palermo, and later on he studied fine arts at the University of Palermo. While at the university, he learnt the complications of the working style of leading painters, including Vincent Van Gogh.
In the early 1930s, Guttuso befriended Pippo Rizzo, a modernist painter. That friendship helped him in getting a foot into the artistic circles in Milan. In 1931, Guttuso went to the Prima Quadriennale d'Arte Nazionale, an exhibition in Rome that is held every four years. At the event, he presented his work inspired by nature and also formed a group with other Sicilian artists. In Palermo, Guttuso formed the ‘The Group of Four’ with two sculptors and painter Lia Pasqualino after they started sharing the same studio.
Renato Guttuso along with five other artists from Sicily, hosted an exhibition in 1932 at the Galleria del Milione, Milan. The exhibition arouse great interest in the Milanese artistic milieu. However, he could not earn a living as a painter and had to work as a picture restorer at the Picture Gallery in Perugia and by the Borghese Gallery in Rome.
The Corrente, an artistic movement which promoted free thinking among artists devoid of any kind of ideological dogma, attracted Renato Guttuso and he became its active member. Renato Guttuso went to Milan in 1935 and stayed there for three years, during which he became a part of the Corrente di Vita, a cultural group. There he made friends with artists such as Birolli, Sassu, Manzù, Fontana, with whom he shared a studio, intellectuals such as Raffaele de Grada, Elio Vittorini, Raffaele Carrieri, Edoardo Persico, the poet Salvatore Quasimodo and the philosopher Antonio Banfi. During his stay in Milan, he painted Fucilazione in Campagna.
Renato Guttuso moved to Rome and permanently resided there since 1938. In Rome, he got acquainted with the leading artists of the time like Mario Mafai, Pericle Fazzini, Francesco Trombadori, and Corrado Cagli among others. Guttuso created his best work after moving to Rome and it all culminated in the painting Crocifissione (Crucifixion) in 1940. It is considered to be his best work, although the ruling fascists of the time denounced the painting in the severest terms. The same year, Renato Guttuso debuted as a musical scene designer, creating scenery and costumes for Histoire du Soldat at the Teatro delle Arti in Rome, directed by Anton Giulio Bragaglia. In 1943 he left Rome for political reasons.
Guttuso worked extensively during World War II and in 1945, he established the ‘New Arts Front’ together with such artists as Birolli, Vedova, Marchiori, and also an art dealer Cairola. It aimed to promote the work of artists who had had a tough time under the fascists. Social themes and scenes of everyday life prevailed in his painting during this period. In 1947 Renato Guttuso moved to a new studio in the Villa Massimo. The same year, he prepared scenery and costumes for the first Italian performance of Shostakovich's Lady Macbeth in Venice, initiating a long collaboration with the choreographer Aurele Millos.
The artist was primarily involved in paintings that depicted the lives of the working class in Italy. In 1950 his first solo exhibition was held in London. In 1952 he produced scenery and costumes for the Italian première of Mother Courage by Bertoldt Brecht, performed at the Teatro dei Satiri in Rome. The period of 1957-1965 were extremely successful, as he participated in major international exhibitions, including those at the Aca-Heller Gallery, New York in 1958, at the Pushkin Museum, Moscow, in 1961; and a large retrospective at the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, in 1962, later moved to the Palais de Beaux Arts, Charleroi. In 1963, a large anthological exhibition, presented by Roberto Longhi, took place in Parma.
In 1965 Guttuso moved to the Palazzo del Grillo, Rome, where he resided and worked until his death. The following year he created Autobiografia; it was a large cycle of paintings which formed the nucleus of an exhibition which travelled to many European countries. During the 1970s, Guttuso produced a series of paintings that were a tribute to feminine beauty and this was the period in which he showed a new facet of his talents as an artist. La Vuccina was his most famous work of that time. In 1971 major retrospectives were held at the Palazzo dei Normanni, Palermo and at the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris.
Renato Guttuso was an artist of rare talent who created plenty of breathtaking artworks. For his work Fucilazione in campagna (Execution in the country) the painter won the Bergamo award in 1938, at that time the most respected artistic prize in Italy. His most important work was Crocifissione, for which he was awarded the second prize at the Premio Bergamo in the Autumn of 1942. In 1950 Guttuso was awarded the World Council of Peace Prize and in 1972 the Lenin Prize.
In 1987, a few months after Guttuso’s death, a memorial exhibition was held in Bagheria; the exhibition, entitled "From the beginning to Gott mit uns", was organized by Maurizio Calvesi with contributions of all the most important Italian art historians.
Today, his works can be found in the collections of the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, the Tate Gallery in London, The Museum of Modern Art in New York, and the Palazzo Ruspoli in Rome, among others.
Telefoni. L'incomunicabilità
Zolfataro
Still Life in the Studio
Ritratto di Marta Marzotto
Scoglio a Scilla
Donne e cavalli
Bottiglie - Omaggio a Morandi
Nudo sdraiato
Brocca e drappo
I calciatori
The Discussion
Hommage à Picasso
Autoritratto
Santa Panagia (Sicily)
Autoritratto
Contadini al lavoro
Giocatori di carte (Amici all'osteria)
Miliziano a riposo (ritratto di Antonello Trombadori)
Nudo - Ombra di Allen Jones
Tavolo e oggetti nello studio
Animali nella notte
Caffe Greco
Interno
Tre operai e una prostituta
Campieri
Panocchia su fondo rosso
Retata - Portella della ginestra
La Strada
La Vucirria
Da Guernica
La spiaggia
Uomo che mangia gli spaghetti
Nude
Sulphur Miners
Nudo femminile
Renato Guttuso was a follower of Catholicism.
Guttuso was a supporter of the Communist Party due to his strong anti-Fascist views.
In 1938 Renato Guttuso met Mimise Dotti. The two married in 1956. Famous poet Pablo Neruda was a witness at their wedding. Mimise Dotti later became his confidant and model. The couple did not have any children.
