Renato Guttuso

Renato Guttuso (Bagheria 1911 – Roma 1987) is one of the best Italian masters of 20th century. Always bound up with Sicily, his homeland, which is represented on his paintings with intense and expressive colours. 

He was politicaly and socialy active and we can find this commitment in many works of his. He worked with many art and culture magazines e joined Italian Communist Party. He knew many artists and authors of his time like Birolli, Sassu, Manzù, Fontana, Quasimodo, Persico, Moravia, Alicata, Pasolini, Neruda, De Filippo. He supported a realist view of art, nearby the group Corrente and in contrast with the primitive concepts of the group Novecento. He gave a political and social meaning to his works.

He lived all his life in Rome; he went to Milan only in 1935 and in Paris in where he met Picasso and became a friend of his. In 1943 he took part in antifascist resistance and he documented this period with drawings. He was a founder of the movement Fronte Nuovo delle Arti whose aim was to recover most important European trends considered "degenerated art" by totalitarian regimes.

The protagonists of his paintings are exploited workers, marginalized and alienated people, humble people and peasents from his homeland. Some of his masterpieces are The Crucifixion (1940-1941) which was strongly disapproved by Vatican because Cristo's sacrifice represented pains caused by the war ; Boogie Woogie (1954); The Discussion (1959-1960); Vucciria (1964).