23 Facts About Renato Guttuso

Aldo Renato Guttuso was an Italian painter and politician.

Renato Guttuso is considered to be among the most important Italian artists of the 20th century and is among the key figures of Italian expressionism.

Renato Guttuso's art is characterized by social and political commentary, and as a member of the Italian Communist Party he became its senator for two legislatures, from 1976 to 1983, during Enrico Berlinguer's secretariat.

Renato Guttuso was born on 26 December, 1911 in Bagheria, near Palermo.

Renato Guttuso was the son of Gioacchino Guttuso, land surveyor and amateur watercolorist, and Giuseppina d'Amico.

Renato Guttuso began signing and dating his works at the age of thirteen.

Renato Guttuso lived close to a house amongst the Valguarnera villas and Palagonia, which he would soon represent in paintings inspired by the cliffs of Aspra.

In Palermo and Bagheria Renato Guttuso observed the dereliction of 18th-century villas previously belonging to the nobility, abandoned to decay as a consequence of political infighting within the municipal chambers.

Renato Guttuso finished the Umberto I classical high school in Palermo and continued his studies at the University of Palermo, where his development was modelled according to the European figurative trends of the day, from Courbet to Van Gogh and to Picasso.

Back in Palermo Renato Guttuso opened a studio in Pisani street and together with painter Lia Pasqualino and sculptors Barbera and Nino Franchina formed the Gruppo dei Quattro.

In 1937 Renato Guttuso moved to Rome and opened his first studio in Piazza Melozzo.

Renato Guttuso lived close to significant artists of the time: Mario Mafai, Corrado Cagli, Antonello Trombadori, keeping in contact with the group from Milan of Giacomo Manzu and Aligi Sassu.

Renato Guttuso continued painting during World War II, with his work ranging from landscape glimpses of the Gulf of Palermo to a collection of drawings entitled Massacri, which implicitly denounced slaughters such as the Adreatine massacre.

Renato Guttuso become an active participant in the partisan struggle in 1943.

Renato Guttuso collaborated on the magazine Il Calendario del Popolo, established the same year.

Renato Guttuso finished Muratori in riposo, an artwork in china ink and watercolour that he had started during the war, a symbol of rebirth of which Pier Paolo Pasolini wrote in 1962:.

Renato Guttuso wrote that these were preparatory sketches for his 1949 painting Occupazione delle terre incolte in Sicilia, exhibited at the Venice Biennale in 1950.

Renato Guttuso painted a series from life about the fight of the peasants for occupied lands, the sulfur miners, or glimpses of landscape between cactus and prickly pears, as well as portraits of men from contemporary culture such as Nino Garajo and Bruno Caruso.

Renato Guttuso was confirmed in the political elections of 3 June, 1979 in the Senate of the Republic for the PCI in the Lucera constituency with 29,418 votes.

Renato Guttuso died in Rome of lung cancer at the age of 75 on 18 January, 1987.

Marta Marzotto, in an interview, claimed that Renato Guttuso had always been an atheist.

Renato Guttuso donated many of his works to his hometown Bagheria, which are now housed in the museum of the Villa Cattolica.

Renato Guttuso's tomb is the work of the sculptor Giacomo Manzu.