Giuseppe Cesetti Biography
Giuseppe Cesetti was born in Tuscania in 1902, in that Etruscan land, sunny and silent, which arouses in those who spend it the idea of a multi-millennial land, where time is canceled and where nature still gives us today a mythical and primordial teaching that it brings us closer to the hidden truths of beings and things. The son of farmers, he lived his clear and painful adolescence in Tuscania. These years of free life in the secret and ancient Maremma will give his art an indelible mark that he will be able to preserve through the many experiences of his fruitful life. At sixteen, he leaves his family and begins his wanderings. Attracted by the treasures and profound beauty of our cities, he travels the entire peninsula, observing the masters and finding particular spiritual affinity in the works in which the mystery of nature and the indestructible poetry of life is manifested. In 1927 he was in Como, where he exhibited for the first time. He then moved to Florence, where he collaborated with the "Solaria" gallery, publishing some drawings there. In 1930 his first personal exhibition was held at the Galleria Santa Trinità, which received general acclaim. Important collectors and many artists including Libero Andreotti, Romano Romanelli, Ottone Rosai, Ugo Ojetti, encourage the event by purchasing paintings. Ottone Rosai bonds with Cesetti with brotherly friendship. In 1931 Cesetti was appointed assistant to the chair of painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Venice. Many young people gathered around him and the Cavallino movement was born. Also in 1931 he participated in the Rome Quadrennial with three works, arousing vast interest from critics who spoke of it as a "revelation", dedicating ample space to it. In 1934 he was awarded a wall at the Venice Biennale. Five works are on display (including the well-known Alla staccionata and Nudo di giovinetta). In March 1935 he exhibited a group of thirty challenging works in Milan, at the Galleria del Milione, presenting himself with a self-portrait. The large painting I vaccari, one of his most significant works, was exhibited at the 1936 Biennale. From 1935 to 1937 he stayed in Paris, where he became part of the particularly lively and exciting artistic world of those years, forming friendships with, among others, Giorgio de Chirico, Filippo de Pisis and Antonio Aniante. Having returned to Italy, he stopped in Milan, joining the Pesce d'Oro group composed of Giovanni Scheiwiller, Francesco Messina, Salvatore Quasimodo, Raffaele Carrieri, Leonardo Sinisgalli, Arturo Tofanelli and others. This was a very intense period for the artist. Commissioned by Giò Ponti, he created a large ceramic floor, exhibited at the Universal Exhibition in Paris in 1937, in a room of the Italian pavilion where Gino Severini and Massimo Campigli were also present. In 1939 he took up the chair of drawing at the Liceo Artistico in Venice, and in 1941 he was appointed chair of painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in the same city. In 1943 he asked to be transferred to the chair of the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome. In that period he founded the Gallery of the Century. After the war, he was appointed provincial deputy of Viterbo by the liberation committees. Together with Bonaventura Tecchi, also a deputy for Viterbo, he is particularly dedicated to the rebirth of the historical heritage of Tuscia damaged by bombing. In 1946, at the request of the ministry concerned, he resumed the chair of Venice. In the same year he organized the "La Colomba" award which was hosted in two pavilions of the Biennale, the French one and the German one, restored for the occasion. It can therefore be considered that from that moment the Biennale comes back to life. In 1949 he organized and presided, in collaboration with the municipality of Venice, the important exhibition "50 years of painting in Italy", set up in the Napoleonic Wing, creating on that occasion the "purchase prize" which is still current today. From 1955 to 1958 he resided in Paris where he began his important French period. Upon his return to Italy he briefly resumed his professorship in Venice. In 1961 the city of Viterbo set up a large anthological exhibition by Cesetti in the Palazzo dei Priori, with over 100 paintings ranging from 1928 to 1961. In 1962 it was transferred to the Academy of Fine Arts in Florence. But before the school year began, he was appointed cultural attaché for Plastic and Figurative Arts at the Italian Embassy in Paris. In this capacity he undertakes an energetic action to further enhance Italian artists abroad, through exhibitions and publications including: “Contemporary Italian Painting” on the occasion of the “Journées Italiennes” in Mulhouse (May 1964); “Contemporary Italian Sculpture” in the Le Havre Museum (November 1964); “De Pisis, Donghi, Morandi, Soffici” at the Gallery of Cultural Services of the Embassy, Paris (May 1965); “Nine Italian painters in Paris” at the Gallery of Cultural Services of the Embassy, Paris (May 1966); the same exhibition was transferred to the Palais de la Méditerranée in Nice in July; “Recherches de 18 artistes italiens en France” at the Gallery of Cultural Services of the Embassy, Paris (December 1967). At the same time, Cesetti painted with intensity, taking particular inspiration not only from Paris, but also from the banks of the Loire, the Camargue, Normandy and the Ile de France. At the end of 1967 he returned to Italy and settled in Rome, however making frequent stays in Paris in his atelier on the rue de Seine. After the earthquake that shocked the city of Tuscania in 1972, he worked for the rebirth of the historic center and to revive the ancient traditions of the place, promoting events and movements including the "Association of Butteri of Southern Etruria". These initiatives met with immediate success and a vast echo in the climate of defense of essential values that has arisen in the world and which Cesetti has not ceased to exalt through his work. Taking up the family tradition, he also dedicated himself to breeding thoroughbred and Maremma horses, entrusted to the care of his daughter Marta. But much of the work is done in Montebello's studio, from where he can contemplate, at the four cardinal points, the Mediterranean strip, the Montaùto chain, Mount Amiata, the Cimini mountains, Allumiere and the two vast valleys of the Marta and the Fiora who saw him as a teenager and where, in the summer, he was "entrusted" with the herd of his grandfather Agostino Meloni, an attentive and affectionate breeder towards the child who he often took on horseback, holding him in his arms on the saddle of the Maremma saddle. Since then, long years of experience, of vicissitudes, now happy, now sad, have passed for him, years however which were always of intense work, of absolute honesty and of exemplary clarity both towards his conscience and his art. Cesetti's works have been exhibited in numerous exhibitions, in Italy and abroad, with major Italian and foreign artists, and are found in the most important museums and private collections. He has participated several times with personal rooms at the Venice Biennale and the Rome Quadrennial. He was a critic of the "Ambrosiano" and the "Gazzetta di Venezia". He has published books of poetry, prose and critical essays. He died in Tuscania on 19 December 1990.