GIULIO TURCATO ©

GIULIO TURCATO

Giulio Turcato was born in Mantua in 1912. He moved to Venice in 1925 where he attended the Liceo artistico and the Scuola Libera del Nudo, occasionally, hindered by his family. He made his first paintings and participated in a group exhibition (1932). In 1934, during military service in Palermo, he felt the first symptoms of a lung disease that would mark his existence. Settling in Milan in 1937, he is often ill, traveling around hospitals but manages to exhibit in a first solo show. He draws in Muzio's architectural studio. He comes into contact with Corrente but does not join it. In 1943 he establishes residence in Rome. While engaged in the Resistance, he continues to paint. In 1945, together with Prampolini, Fazzini, Jarema, Savelli, Mafai, Corpora, Consagra, Perilli, he forms the Art Club and presents his works at the Galleries Il Pincio, del Secolo, San Marco (1945). He subscribed to the manifesto of the New Italian Art Secession and made a trip to Paris with Carla Accardi, Consagra and Sanfilippo with whom, together with Attardi, Dorazio, Guerrini and Perilli, he formed the Forma 1 group. In 1947 he exhibited at Galleria La Spiga in Milan with the Nuova Secessione, which later changed its name to Fronte Nuovo delle Arti (it would disband in 1948). Turcato joins the Gruppo degli Otto (born from a split in the Fronte), which theorizes informal abstractionism. The work Miniera earned him a prize at the Venice Biennale (he had already taken part and participated in the 1952, 1956-1958, 1966-1968, and 1972 editions; in the 1984 one he staged the performance Moduli in viola / Omaggio a Kandinsky, directed by Vana Caruso, his wife). The famous painting Comizio (1949) infuriates Togliatti because it is too abstract, but Turcato defends it thus, "Actually, the Comizio is quite a veristic painting; there are those kind of red triangles that represent the red flags that are the mass." Testifying to his political passion, works such as Napalm Massacre and Atomic Landscape followed. In 1950 he made a trip to Paris and in 1956 another to Asia (Russia, China, India). He travels to Morocco, Switzerland, Sweden and travels to New York (1962). Visits Cairo, Luxor, Abu Simbel (1964), experiences that inspired the series of paintings Doors of Egypt. Stays in Nairobi (1970). Cycles of works include Archipelagos, Lunar Landscapes, Foam Itineraries, and Changeling. He exhibits with solo shows all over the world, including the Documenta exhibitions in Kassel and the São Paulo Biennale. Among museums, he is at MoMa in New York, Pac fi Milano, Staatsgalerie Moderner Kunst in Munich, Musée de l'Athenée in Geneva, Philadelphia Museum of Art and many others. He died in Rome in 1995 and is remembered today as one of the most important abstract-informal artists of the 20th century. The Piero Della Francesca Art Gallery in Arezzo organized no less than 3 exhibitions of Turcato's work: the 1972 solo show, an event that was a great success with the public and critics; the thematic exhibition dedicated to "Cangianti," in the context of Arte Fiera Bologna (1991); and the 1995 exhibition dedicated to paintings and graphics, held shortly before the author's death that same year.