Carlo Bertocci Biography
Carlo Bertocci was born in 1946 in Castell'Azzara, Tuscany. In 1973 he graduated in Architecture from the University of Florence, where he collaborated as a volunteer assistant and researcher in the Department of History of Architecture with Eugenio Battisti for four years. In 1974 he held his first solo exhibition at the Schema Gallery in Florence, where he exhibited conceptual works. In the same year he participated in the "Contemporanea" exhibition in Rome, curated by Achille Bonito Oliva. In the following years, Bertocci held various jobs, including illustrator, comic book artist, architectural designer and teacher in public schools. He also collaborated with the art magazines "Flash Art" and "Segno". In 1980 he wrote a book entitled "Performance, thirty years of artistic experiences between the environment and the utopia of the body", but which was never published. In the 1980s, Bertocci dedicated himself to figurative painting and in 1982 he was invited by Italo Mussa to participate in the exhibition "Unusual and decadent images of painting" at Palazzo Strozzi. From that moment, he collaborated with the Pittura Colta group, becoming one of its most lyrical protagonists. His art focused on architecture, figures and symbols. According to Mussa, Bertocci's art is "anti-heroic" and "manifests the dignity of real beauty". His painting represents a new iconography that evolves compared to the Metaphysical Painting of De Chirico, Carrà, Casorati and De Pisis. In the following years, Bertocci participated in numerous personal and collective exhibitions, both in Italy and abroad, together with artists from the Cultured Painting and Anachronism groups. In 1993, his work was reported in the encyclopedia "Painting in Italy: the twentieth century/2" published by Electa. Starting in 1991, he also began to dedicate himself to ceramics and sculpture, creating some bronzes. In 2004, the Senate of the Italian Republic purchased one of his paintings for the permanent collection of Palazzo Madama in Rome and commissioned him to paint the portrait of Giovanni Spadolini for the soon-to-be-established Gallery of Portraits of the Presidents of the Senate in the same building. Currently, the artist lives and works in Florence.
