Ernesto Quarti Biography
Bergamo 1907-1982. Painter and graphic designer. He attended the Carrara Academy in his hometown. He made his debut in 1925 at the V Triennial of Fine Arts of the Carrara Academy. The following year his first solo exhibition was held at the Art Gallery of Bergamo, where he also exhibited in 1929, 1930 and 1934. In the same 1934 he held a solo exhibition at the Studio Jandolo in Rome and in 1937 at the Galleria Vitelli in Genoa. He then took part in various collective exhibitions and art exhibitions, including the Interprovincial Exhibitions of the Fine Arts Union, the Rome Quadrennial of 1939, the Venice Biennials of 1940 and 1942 and the most important post-war art prizes. Of particular importance is his award at the Premio Suzzara in 1956, the only event in which he participated in that period. In 1974 he ordered a solo exhibition at the Galerie des Beaux Arts in Paris. Then, from the end of that decade, numerous other solo shows were held especially in Bergamo: we remember the 1983 retrospective at the Bergamo Art Gallery and the 1990 anthology at the Palazzo della Permanente in Milan. Quarti Marchiò can be inserted into a typically Lombard tradition of naturalist painting; during the 1930s his palette lightened and his style became more synthetic. Among the subjects addressed, Muslim Africa is central, represented, especially in the figures, with compositional essentiality and a taste for the exotic. The human figure also plays a prominent role in the rest of his production, rendered with diaphanous colors and an intimate tone. After the Second World War he created works of a neorealist nature, such as the large painting Horrors of War (1950), which he himself later destroyed.
