Renato Guttuso *

(Bagheria/Palermo 1912–1987 Rome)
Ritratto di Nino Franchina, 1937, signed and dated, oil on wood, 89 x 60 cm, framed
Provenance:
Dr. Nicolò Glaviano Collection, Palermo
Benito Franchina Collection, Messina
European Private Collection

Exhibited:
Palermo, Mostra di cinque artisti siciliani, Galleria Mediterranea, 1937
Palermo, Mostra antologica dell’opera di Renato Guttuso, Palazzo dei Normanni, 13 February – 14 March 1971, p. 61, no. 25 with ill. (label on the reverse)
Catania, Renato Guttuso. Gli anni della formazione, Galleria d’Arte Moderna de “Le Ciminiere”, April – May 2001 (label on the reverse)

Literature:
A. Moravia, F. Grasso, Renato Guttuso. La vita e l’opera di Guttuso, Edizioni Il Punto, Palermo 1962, p. 43 with ill.
E. Crispolti (ed.), Catalogo Ragionato Generale dei Dipinti di Renato Guttuso, vol. I, Giorgio Mondadori & Associati, Milan 1983, p. 49, no. 37/12 with ill.
M. Calvesi, D. Favatella Lo Cascio (eds.), Renato Guttuso dagli esordi al Gott mit Uns 1924-1944, Sellerio, Palermo, 1987, p. 45, qtd
Galleria della Cometa. I cataloghi dal 1935 al 1938, Edizioni della Cometa, Rome 1989, p. 21 with ill.
E. Vittorini, Il Garofano Rosso, Oscar Mondadori, Milan, 1997, cover ill.

Note:
The original confidential title was “Ritratto di un Miliziano” (Portrait of a Militiaman)

In the portrait of Nino Franchina, Renato Guttuso captures not only the likeness of his friend but also the inner tension of one of the most original figures in post-war Italian sculpture. The pictorial mark, incisive and vibrant, seems to translate onto the canvas the same plastic energy that animated Franchina's iron works, grasping his restless and experimental character. What emerges is an intense image in which the dialogue between painting and sculpture becomes a psychological portrait and a testament to a profound human and artistic affinity. As Guttuso himself once said, Franchina was a true 'poet of iron,' capable of infusing the material with a rare expressive force, evoked here with extraordinary pictorial sensitivity.