Italo Cremona Biography
Italo Cremona (1905 - 1979) was a painter, set designer and writer, forerunner and spokesperson of the surreal movement in Italy. He is the key character of Turin's fantastic-surreal culture. His training is influenced by the metaphysical language of the so-called "Magical Realism" and the dream-surreal vision. He creates images that stand out for their particular fantastic-narrative vein in which he captures in a personal way some expressions of Belgian surrealism. In both painting and drawing, intellectual finesse and a strong graphic sense are perceptible. He is capable of giving life on canvas to deliriums of very controlled backgrounds that create a constant dystonia with the subjects and his brilliant, almost psychedelic colours. Macabre dances, female nudes, demons and animalistic figures, forms that are shaped and recreated in homage to Savinio. After the 1950s his fantasy world crystallized into his own entirely personal surrealism. Italo Cremona was born in Cozzo Lomellina (Pv) in 1905 and moved with his family to Turin in 1911, where he graduated in law in 1927, cultivating, from a very young age, an interest in painting, which he studied at evening school of Nude and Historical Costume of the Albertina Academy of Turin. He formed a solid bond with Felice Casorati, participating in the exhibitions of his students since 1931. Italo Cremona's exhibition debut dates back to 1928 at the Società Promotrice delle Belle Arti of Turin, which was followed by important exhibitions throughout Italy, from the Venice Biennale at the Roman Quadrennial. He was also an art critic interested in neglected movements such as Liberty (The Time of Art Nouveau, 1964). After the war he was appointed to the chair of Decoration at the Albertina Academy in Turin from 1946 to 1955, the year in which he founded the Turin State Institute of Art, which he directed until 1975, without abandoning his pictorial activity which continued until his last years. of life.
