In the 17th-century rooms of Palazzo Salmatoris at Cherasco, in the province of Cuneo, the anthological exhibition of one of Italy’s most outstanding painters is being staged until 16 December 2001 - Renato Guttuso (Bagheria 1911 – Rome 1987).

The exhibition is of international ranking as it attracts visitors from all over the world with a series of more than seventy works - oils and large drawings belonging to the various periods that have distinguished the artist’s career. Undisputed master of Italian neorealism, or better, of neorealist painting, which developed alongside literature, films, etc., a friend of Neruda, Moravia, Pasolini and Edoardo De Filippo, without forgetting Picasso, the Bagheria artist was tied to Sciascia and Vittorini by a special relationship, stemming from their common Sicilian origins. Sicilianity was a constant feature of Guttuso’s work, being an integral part of his existence. If it is true to say that every artist always conveys something of him/herself and of the cultural environment he/she breathes, then Guttuso was no exception; in his paintings in fact we detect an ongoing attention for the reality and history that accompanied him in life. The painter was profoundly aware of the potential of art and of the role of the artist, whose activity, forever enjoyable, could in fact project a moral message. Undeniably, a Guttuso celebrity, politicised, exists alongside a Guttuso painter, from whom transpires an uncommon pictorial quality and an expressionist artistic tension; the politicised Guttuso contributed to the man’s widespread renown and even went so far as to make him a sociological phenomenon. Today his works remain eloquent testimonies because each visitor can attribute to them a different meaning, depending on the emotions they kindle in the individual. As a youngster, Guttuso was employed in the workshop of Emilio Murdolo, a decorator of carts and then in the atelier of Domenico Quattrocchi a skilled post-impressionist painter. At the end of the Twenties, whilst completing his classical studies, he followed the teachings of futurist, Pippo Rizzo. After exhibiting at the 1st Quadrennial Exhibition in Rome, in 1931, and in a collective exhibition at the Milione Gallery in Milan, he abandoned his university studies and, in 1933, went to live in Rome, where he made the acquaintance of Pirandello, Cagli, Mafai and Ziveri, all of whom influenced his work. In 1935, he took part in the 2nd Quadrennial and the following year in the Venice Biennial. His first epic-popular painting appeared in 1938 with the title “La fuga dall’Etna”. In that same year, he staged a one-man exhibition at the La Cometa gallery in Rome. In 1942, he took second prize at Bergamo with the famous painting “La Crocifissione”, an open denouncement of the disasters caused by Fascism. Meanwhile, he studied and re-interpreted the work of Picasso, currently on show at Palazzo Reale in Milano - the post-cubist Picasso- and kindled social dispute by playing a crucial role in the realist evolution of Italian painting. He also became a go-between for Roman and Milanese artistic “Currents” and worked within the Fascist left under Minister Bottai and the “Primato” magazine. During the Second World War he was actively engaged in the resistance movement and began the series of “massacres”, later collected up in the book “Gott mit uns”. After joining the Fronte Nuovo delle Arti, he became the major exponent of “realist” painting, politically engaged alongside the Italian Left and often at loggerheads with the “formalist” trends of a great deal of abstract art. On show are highly important and capital works, starting with those of the Thirties, such as the “Ritratto di Alberto della Ragione”, a collector of outstanding renown. Nudes, still lives, sacred art studies, Sicilian landscapes, workers, all painted in strong, bright, warm colours and shades. Among the accent pieces are the Picasso-inspired works such as “La grande lavandaia” and masterpieces like “Riposo del pescatore”, “La notte di Ghibellina”, the famous picture entitled “Strega malinconica” exhibited all over the world, and the renowned “Tetti di Bagheria” and “Rottami d’auto con manto”. A typically Italian painter whose works, starting with the “Caffè Greco” right up to the depiction of Palermo market, from the “Studio per la Crocifissione” up to the landscape corners captured at Velate in the Varese area where the artist lived when he used to come up from Rome, enable visitors to discover how he painted the history of his day.