Renato Guttuso: Painter of Modern Life, Estorick Collection

Renato Guttuso may not be as well known today as other modern Italian artists like Fontana and Manzoni, but this painter and polemicist is acknowledged as the father of Social Realism in Italy.

This Estorick Collection exhibition highlights Guttuso’s role in modern art as he chronicled the turbulence of social and political life in Italy across forty years, beginning with the pre-war years of the Fascist regime. If you are not familiar with the Estorick Collection, this London art gallery, tucked away in Highbury & Islington, boasts an unparalleled collection of modern Italian art.

Renato Guttuso biography

A native of the Palermo region, Guttuso abandoned his law studies to move to Rome in 1937 where he devoted himself to the practice of painting. Renato Guttuso’s paintings reflected his strongly held political beliefs and sense of social responsibility.

He was a fervent advocate of depicting the realities of contemporary life, in contrast to the dominant Novecento neoclassicism style championed by the Fascists and the formalism of abstract painting. In 1946, he co-formed the group Fronte Nuovo delle Arti, which aimed to break the confines of the Fascist’s Novecento Italiano movement.

Guttuso took an active part in the struggle against the Fascists and Nazis in Italy and made a series of bitterly anti-Nazi drawings entitled Gott mit Uns. His work was also influenced by leading avant-garde figures, including the writer Alberto Moravia, poet Pablo Neruda, director Luchino Visconti, and other artists such as Pablo Picasso whom he befriended after the war.

Guttuso’s subjects range from scenes of peasant life, the struggles of the workers, to soft nudes and enchanting landscapes. His vivid and intensely chromatic paintings will brighten up any January blues and is a must for aficionados of modern art.