(Rome 1935–1978)
Spicchio di limone,1972, signed on the reverse iniziato il 7.12.72 - Interrotto il 10.1.73 “Spicchio di limone” Roma 1972–73 Claudio Cintoli, and with the stamp of the atelier, acrylic and plaster on shaped wood panel, 33 x 68 x 6 cm

Photo-certificate:
Giancarlo Cintoli, Rome 22.10.16

Provenance:
Private Collection, Italy

Exhibited:
Fano, Arte Fano: Aspetti della ricerca iconografica oggi, Rocca Malatestiana-Loggia San Michele, August 1975 (label on the reverse)
Ancona, Premio Artemisia 2010, Mole Vanvitelliana, November/December 2010, cat. p. 32
Rome, Claudio Cintoli, Galleria G. Scarchilli, April 2018, cat. p. 22 with ill.

Literature:
“Il Mito del Pop”, catalogue of the exhibition at Galleria d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea A. Pizzinato, Pordenone, May/October 2017, curated by Silvia Pegoraro

Claudio Cintoli was born in Imola, but lived in Recanati. He came into contact with painting at a very young age thanks to his grandfather, Biagio Biagetti, the first Director of the Vatican Museums, and also a painter and author of religious fresco cycles.
Following the return of his family to Rome, Cintoli commenced his studies at the Academy of Fine Arts. At the age of 23, he was already the star of two solo exhibitions, at the Palazzo Comunale of Recanati and the La Medusa Gallery in Rome.
From the start he appeared to exist in a constant, desperate effort to unify the opposing forces which characterised his nature as a man and as an artist. Yet Cintoli left a legacy of indelible  memories during his short life, which was totally consumed in the span of just forty-three years. These are principally linked to Arte Povera, and above all with certain performances, perfectly in line with the experience of Body Art as a symbolic and physical exhibition of his own body in Crisalide, which was presented on 1 December 1972 on the invitation of Graziella Lonardi Buontempo as part of the “Mappa 72” festival curated by Achille Bonito Oliva, held at the Palazzo Taverna di Roma, the headquarters of “Incontri Internazionali d’Arte”.
Cintoli left for New York in August 1965, where he would remain until 1968. It was a critical period for the artist, who produced colour-animated films for the Lindberg production company, and began to work as a critic for the Cinema-Documentario and Flash Art magazines. In 1967 he published “A letter from New York” for Vie Nuove magazine, in which he revealed and clarified new developments in his work: “We see that the human eye is no longer in direct contact with nature, but mostly exists in an artificial environment, made of countless baffles, from simple sunglasses to photographic lenses, from television to cinema, from slide shows to advertising, from rotogravure to four-colour printing [...]. From the start of my research in this area, I have nursed the conviction that the creative function must respond to the dimension of serialisation on the one hand, and spectacle on the other, so as to draw in the largest possible section of the public.” This would appear to be the right lens through which to view Cintoli’s painting, which has nothing to do with the cynicism of mass society extolled by Pop Art. His works employ pictorial language inferred from advertising graphic design or from hyperrealism in order to invite the public to enter the work.

Cintoli returned to painting with a series of works which represent objects and themes conceptually related to this phase of rebirth, such as Uovo (1976-77), Mezz’anguria (1976-77), Spicchio di limone (1973/74), and Nido (1977). The subjects of these paintings are at first glance naturalistic, but are in reality inspired by the tension between the real and the symbolic, between superficiality and profundity: the egg and ostrich transform into incredible moonlit landscapes, the split watermelons become metaphors for female genitalia, the large round nest reveals, in the agitated struggles of new-born birds, the primitive drama of the battle for survival, and the slice of lemon, with its yellow pulp surrounding an ovule-seed, shows us an embryo within.