Carlo Sartori Biography
The fourth of eleven children, Carlo Sartori was born on 27 May 1921 in Ranzo di Vezzano (Tn), a small rural town. In 1939 he began a correspondence course at the ABC School of Turin with great expectations, followed by Professor Giovanni Reduzzi and, despite himself, he had to interrupt it after two years due to the war events. From 1941 to 1942 he was in fact called to carry out military service in the Artieri Engineers of Bolzano. Following his firm refusal to fight alongside the Germans and with the fascist brigades, in 1943 he was interned in the Krems concentration camp (Austria), then moved to other camps as a forced laborer until 1945. Finally, in 1946, he was able resume the correspondence drawing course at the ABC School in Turin followed, in the years 1949 - 1951, by the correspondence course as an artist decorator at the Volontà Institute in Rome. To support himself and continue his artistic studies, Carlo Sartori alternates his work as a farmer with that of a house painter. At the end of the 1950s he decorated numerous capitals and also created paintings in many private homes in nearby towns. He also executed the frescoes of the Casa Sociale of Godenzo-Poia, creating various sets for the amateur drama companies in the town's theatre. He studied privately with passion and perseverance, reading, rereading and annotating the most important art criticism texts of the time, attentive to the precious suggestions contained in the painting and decoration manuals with which he surrounded himself. He also follows art exhibitions at local, regional and national level with particular attention. He then took part in the collective exhibition of the Bolzano Press Club where he was rewarded. After years of sacrifices and disappointments, the first satisfactions began for Sartori. In 1960 he presented his first solo exhibition at the Hotel Miralago in Molveno (Tn), obtaining success and flattering appreciation and in 1961 he had his first solo exhibition in Trento at the Galleria degli Specchi, presented by Raphael Pricert. In 1962 he participated in the IV International Painting Prize Paestum (Sa). His painting "All'osteria", oil on canvas from 1961, was retained and he was awarded the title of academic member of the Academy of Paestum. Also during 1962 he obtained, through a competition, the possibility of staging a personal exhibition at the Kaldor Gallery in Torbole sul Garda. Great success and numerous contacts, then cultivated for a long time, with the Austrian and German world. It is a fundamental year, 1971, for Carlo Sartori's artistic career. He participated in numerous group exhibitions and important solo exhibitions, among which, absolutely worth mentioning, is the one set up at the Galleria Città di Riva, then managed by Dante Dassatti. In 1972 Sartori participated in the XXV edition of the Suzzara Prize (Mn), an international exhibition of black and white painting and sculpture. Reported by the art critic Raffaele De Grada, upon his suggestion, he participates with two works in the VI National Exhibition of Naifs in Luzzara (Re), chaired by the writer Cesare Zavattini. He was awarded and his work “La scampagnata” was purchased for the Museum. In the following years, Carlo Sartori was regularly invited to the Museum's initiatives, so much so that, in 1977, he was assigned a Homage Room within the Museum itself for a personal exhibition. In 1982 he was appointed member of the Accademia Roveretana degli Agiati. This important recognition takes place in a period in which Sartori's original work is increasingly appreciated by the public and critics, giving the artist success, economic fortune and, unfortunately, also many imitators. On the occasion of the artist's eightieth year of life, in 2001, published and edited by the painter himself, by his niece Gemma, with the collaboration of the entire Sartori family, “The drawings of a life. Unpublished works". The volume "made up of sketches and drawings that do not appear in the finished work and that most ignore" (as the artist underlines in the introduction), is today a truly indispensable tool for fully understanding the artistic, personal and human path of painter from Godenzo. Carlo Sartori on 5 May 2010, his will is the establishment of a foundation, the Carlo Sartori Painter House Museum Foundation, to conserve and protect his work, promoting its knowledge and diffusion.
