(Bagheria/Palermo 1912–1987 Rome)
Natura morta con la scure / Grande natura morta con fiaschi e bricco, 1947, signed and dated Guttuso ‘47, oil on canvas, 131 x 97.3 cm, (AR)

Provenance:
Studio d’Arte Palma, Rome (label on the reverse)
Galleria Giugger, Milan
G. A. Cavellini, Brescia
Toninelli Arte Moderna, Milan-Rome
Private Collection, Rome
European Private Collection

Exhibited:
Rome, Studio d’Arte Palma, Renato Guttuso, October 1947, exh. cat. ill. XIV
Hanover, The Hanover Gallery, London, Renato Guttuso – Catherine Yarrow, 1 June–1 July 1950, exh. cat. no. 7;
Venice, XXVI Esposizione Biennale Internazionale d’Arte – Venezia, 1952, owner: Achille Cavallini, (label on the reverse)
Ferrara, Palazzo dei Diamanti, Renato Guttuso: Immagini autobiografiche ed altre opere, 11 July–8 September 1968, exh. cat. no. 85 with ill.;
Rome, Toninelli Arte Moderna, 10 Dipinti di Guttuso dal 1947 al 1967, 1–28 February 1968, ill. in the exh. cat.
Milan, Fondazione Mazzotta, Renato Guttuso, 27 January–6 March 2005 , exh. cat. pp. 76–77 with ill. (label on the reverse)
Mamiamo di Trastevolo, Parma, Fondazione Magnani Rocca, Guttuso. Passione e realtà, 11 September–8 December 2010, exh. cat. pp. 120–121 with ill. (label on the reverse)

Literature:
“L’Unità”, Rome, 19 October 1947, with ill.;
“La Nuova Civiltà”, Catania, July–August 1949, with ill. G. Ghiringhelli, Pittura moderna italiana, Orengo Turati, Turin 1949, pp. 84–85 with ill.
G. Marchiori, Guttuso, Edizioni Moneta, Milan 1952, p. 82 with ill.; Enrico Crispolti, Catalogo ragionato generale dei dipinti di Renato Guttuso, Mondadori & associati, 1983, vol. I, p. 167 with colour ill., p. 171, no. 47/68 with ill.

The immediate postwar years in Italy and in Europe marked the beginning of a period of exhausting and creative research, which examined many new expressive possibilities.
Milan, Turin, Rome and Venice offered places where these many ‘revolutions’ could take shape. For the new protagonists the forerunner they looked to most often in order to escape their enclosed provincialism was Pablo Picasso. Of particular importance was his work Guernica, “the most terribly moral piece of art that has ever been created”, in the words of Giulio Carlo Argan. Here, the content and manner of expression represented a European alternative to a desire for novelty that had, at a social level, become necessary due to the many upheavals of the previous years.
The ‘Neocubist infatuation’ was characteristic of a large number of these artists, such as Guttuso, Leoncillo, Morlotti and Pizzinato; while the Realism of Peverelli, Testori, Sassu e Zigaina proclaimed the need for a concrete link between art and objectivity.
Despite the proliferation of many separate movements, the stifling need to unite in groups found its expression in the Fronte Nuovo delle Arti, which was consecrated at the Venice Biennale of 1948. Here, the difficulty of putting together different and, at times, incompatible groups was high on the agenda. Birolli, Guttuso, Leoncillo, Morlotti, Pizzinato as well as Levi, Santomaso, Vedova e Viani were the main protagonists in this discussion.
“Natura morta con la scure” from 1947 represents a rare and important example of Guttoso’s original adhesion to the Fronte Nuovo delle Arti.
In this painting with its museum-like quality, the Cubist decomposition, which recalls Picasso, takes form in an imposing and sculptural representation. This is mediated by vivid, Mediterranean tones, a true governing principle throughout the entire body of work of the Sicilian artist.
The present still life was displayed in the artist’s solo exhibition at Studio Palma, Rome, and represents, in Crispolti’s words, “one of the most comprehensive, solemn and stylised painterly compositions from Guttuso’s post-Cubist period.”

Provenance:
Studio d’Arte Palma, Rome (label on the reverse)
Galleria Giugger, Milan
G. A. Cavellini, Brescia
Toninelli Arte Moderna, Milan-Rome
Private Collection, Rome
European Private Collection

Exhibited:
Rome, Studio d’Arte Palma, Renato Guttuso, October 1947, exh. cat. ill. XIV
Hanover, The Hanover Gallery, London, Renato Guttuso – Catherine Yarrow, 1 June–1 July 1950, exh. cat. no. 7;
Venice, XXVI Esposizione Biennale Internazionale d’Arte – Venezia, 1952, owner: Achille Cavallini, (label on the reverse)
Ferrara, Palazzo dei Diamanti, Renato Guttuso: Immagini autobiografiche ed altre opere, 11 July–8 September 1968, exh. cat. no. 85 with ill.;
Rome, Toninelli Arte Moderna, 10 Dipinti di Guttuso dal 1947 al 1967, 1–28 February 1968, ill. in the exh. cat.
Milan, Fondazione Mazzotta, Renato Guttuso, 27 January–6 March 2005 , exh. cat. pp. 76–77 with ill. (label on the reverse)
Mamiamo di Trastevolo, Parma, Fondazione Magnani Rocca, Guttuso. Passione e realtà, 11 September–8 December 2010, exh. cat. pp. 120–121 with ill. (label on the reverse)

Literature:
“L’Unità”, Rome, 19 October 1947, with ill.;
“La Nuova Civiltà”, Catania, July–August 1949, with ill. G. Ghiringhelli, Pittura moderna italiana, Orengo Turati, Turin 1949, pp. 84–85 with ill.
G. Marchiori, Guttuso, Edizioni Moneta, Milan 1952, p. 82 with ill.; Enrico Crispolti, Catalogo ragionato generale dei dipinti di Renato Guttuso, Mondadori & associati, 1983, vol. I, p. 167 with colour ill., p. 171, no. 47/68 with ill.

The immediate postwar years in Italy and in Europe marked the beginning of a period of exhausting and creative research, which examined many new expressive possibilities.
Milan, Turin, Rome and Venice offered places where these many ‘revolutions’ could take shape. For the new protagonists the forerunner they looked to most often in order to escape their enclosed provincialism was Pablo Picasso. Of particular importance was his work Guernica, “the most terribly moral piece of art that has ever been created”, in the words of Giulio Carlo Argan. Here, the content and manner of expression represented a European alternative to a desire for novelty that had, at a social level, become necessary due to the many upheavals of the previous years.
The ‘Neocubist infatuation’ was characteristic of a large number of these artists, such as Guttuso, Leoncillo, Morlotti and Pizzinato; while the Realism of Peverelli, Testori, Sassu e Zigaina proclaimed the need for a concrete link between art and objectivity.
Despite the proliferation of many separate movements, the stifling need to unite in groups found its expression in the Fronte Nuovo delle Arti, which was consecrated at the Venice Biennale of 1948. Here, the difficulty of putting together different and, at times, incompatible groups was high on the agenda. Birolli, Guttuso, Leoncillo, Morlotti, Pizzinato as well as Levi, Santomaso, Vedova e Viani were the main protagonists in this discussion.
“Natura morta con la scure” from 1948 represents a rare and important example of Guttoso’s original adhesion to the Fronte Nuovo delle Arti.
In this painting with its museum-like quality, the Cubist decomposition, which recalls Picasso, takes form in an imposing and sculptural representation. This is mediated by vivid, Mediterranean tones, a true governing principle throughout the entire body of work of the Sicilian artist.
The present still life was displayed in the artist’s solo exhibition at Studio Palma, Rome, and represents, in Crispolti’s words, “one of the most comprehensive, solemn and stylised painterly compositions from Guttuso’s post-Cubist period.”