Il soggetto dell’opera “Il Picconiere” è riconducibile ai lavori realizzati tra il ’47 ed il ’50, anni in cui Guttuso aderisce al post-cubismo, usando un realismo moderno e  popolare strettamente legato alla realtà quotidiana.“Il Picconiere” rientra tra i dipinti  dell’artista che affrontano la tematica popolare e del lavoro, ma si distingue dalle altre opere per il formato maggiore. Guttuso con la figura del picconiere in primo piano, con il disegno fortemente marcato, vuole caratterizzare non soltanto fisicamente il personaggio, ma anche psicologicamente il peso del duro lavoro e della fatica fisica. I colori che variano dai bruni agli ocra creano un’alternanza di zone d’ombra e di luce assolata e calda.

Scheda Catalogo

  Renato Guttuso - Was born December 26, 1911 in Bagheria. The father, watercolourist for pleasure, very early transmits to him the passion for art. Just  thirteen years old he made his first paintings: small tablets where mostly he copies the sicilian landscapes of the nineteenth century. During these years he also painted portraits and began to frequent the futuristic studio of  Pippo Rizzo. In 1928 he participated in Palermo in his first group exhibition. In 1931 he took part in the Four-Years National Italian Art in Rome and in 1932 he took part in the Galleria del Milione arousing great interest in the artistic society of Milan. He lives in Rome and he attended artists like Mario Mafai, Francesco Trombadori, Corrado Cagli, Pericle Fazzini, Mirko and Afro. He contributes to newspapers and magazines and now he favours a committed painting. He exhibits, for the second time, in Milan, at the Galleria del Milione, with the “Group of Four” that he had founded in Palermo with Giovanni Barbera, Nino Franchina and Lia Pasqualino Noto at odds with the positivism of “Novecento”, them dominant. Because of military service he spent 1935 in Milan where he became friends with artists such as Birolli, Sassu, Fontana and intellectuals such as Quasimodo and Elio Vittorini. In 1937 he moved permanently to Rome and in these years he made friends with Alberto Moravia and Antonello Trombadori that will be crucial for his membership in the Communist Party which he will be registered in 1940. They were the years of outstanding still lifes, nudes, landscapes and he realizes the Crucifixion, his most famous work and one of the most significant paintings of the twentieth century. In 1943 he left Rome for political reasons and he join the anti-fascist resistance. In Paris he became friends with Pablo Picasso. In Italy with some artists such as Birolli, Vedova, Marchiori he founded the movement “Fronte Nuovo delle Arti” (New Front of the Arts). In his painting there are social issues and daily life: pickmen of the stone of Aspra, sulfur miners, seamstresses. In 1950 he held his first solo show in London. In New York, the Aca-Heller Gallery devotes him a major exhibition. The Puskin Museum in Moscow devotes him a major retrospective in 1961. The Museum of Amsterdam “Stedelick” devotes him an anthology of great success. In 1972 he was elected senator, on the ballot in PCI. In 1985 he frescoed the entire vault of the ceiling of the Teatre Vittorio Emanuele in Messina, representing the legend of Cola Pesce. He died on January 18, 1987.

THE PICKMAN - 1950 -It’s an oil on canvas - The subject of the work “Il Picconiere” can be traced back to the works realized between 1947 and 1950, years in which Guttuso adheres to the post-Cubism, using a modern and popular realism closely related to everyday life. “Il Picconiere” is one of the artist’s paintings that deal with the theme of the popular and work but it’s distinguished from others works to the highest format. Guttuso, with the figure of the pickman put in the foreground with the design strongly marked, he wants to characterize the character not only physically but also psychologically the weight of the hard work and of the physical effort. The colors ranging from brown to ocher create alternating zones of shadow and sunny and hot light.