Bagheria (PA), 1912 - Roma, 1987
Renato Guttuso attended in Bagheria the studio of Domenico Quattrociocchi, a naturalist painter and the workshop of Emilio Murdolo, from whom he learns the art of grinding the colours. Later, in Palermo, he attends the studio of the futurist painter Pippo Rizzo and enrols at the faculty of Law, but soon he abandons university to devote himself entirely to painting.
In 1937, he moves to Rome, where he opens a studio which soon becomes the meeting point for artists and intellectuals; he makes the acquaintance of Mafai, Cagli, Mirko, Melli, Fazzini, Ziveri and Carlo Levi, the writer.
Guttuso enrols in the Italian Communist Pary, in 1940 and joins the Corrente group. Attracted as much by painting as by social justice, he wanted to account the reality of society through his art. Therefore he undertakes a new direction that of Neo-Realism Movement, becoming the principal Italian exponent. He travelled a lot during those years and even exhibited abroad: London, New York, Berlin, Paris, where in 1945 he meets Picasso and they become friends, Warsaw, where he is elected to the National Council.
In 1948 he is amongst the founders of the Fronte Nuovo delle Arti, in Milan, with Turcato, Vedova and others.
Among his most important works "I Funerali di Togliatti" (1972) and "La Vucciria" ( 1974). rie di opere di ispirazione sociale.
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