"Autumn from the window"

RENATO BORSATO

Renato Borsato was born in Venice in 1927. In the course of his painting career, he emerged especially at the beginning among the best Italian painters of the Second Postwar period, attracting the attention of both critics and the public, also as a winner of numerous national and international painting prizes, thanks to his impressionistic suggestion painting, characterized by great lyricism and expressive intensity, thanks to a unique talent in the use of color. He traveled painting in Switzerland, Austria and France where he stayed, in 1953, in Paris. The year 1954 was that of definitive consecration: he participated with 5 works in the Venice Biennale and won the Tursi prize. In '55 he is again in France and is invited to the Rome Quadrennial. In 1956 he again participates in the Venice Biennale with three paintings, one of which is purchased by President of the Republic Giovanni Gronchi and one by the Galleria d'Arte Modena in Rome. In the same year he was again in Paris where Galérie Bernheim organized a solo exhibition of his work and he was interviewed by French television. In 1957 he stayed in Milan, in the following years in Viareggio and London. Among the prizes received in these years, we recall the most important: two first prizes and two seconds at the 40th, 41st, 42nd, 43rd Collettiva Bevilacqua La Masa; at the International Exhibition in Gorizia a prize in 1954 and the Absolute Prize in 1955; National Exhibition in La Spezia “Portovenere Prize” in 1955; First Triveneta Prize in Portogruaro 1956; Third International Painting Exhibition in Moscow; Gold Medal of the Senate of the Republic at the National Prize in Frosinone 1957. Invited to Germany to the “Review of Italian Painting” in 1959/60. In '61 it was Milan again where he achieved resounding success with his solo exhibition at Galleria Ventitré. The 1960s and 1970s are dense with international exhibitions and critical and public recognition. In 1979 he was appointed president of the Bevilacqua la Masa Foundation. By the 1980s, Borsato is now recognized as one of the most important artists working in Italy, and his quotations are steadily rising. In 1986, the Piero Della Francesca Art Gallery, which had already included works by Borsato in a number of group and thematic exhibitions in the 1970s, organized a major solo exhibition of his work. The collaborative relationship continued uninterruptedly until the artist's death, which occurred in Venice, Italy, in July 2013.