Xavier Bueno *

(Vera de Bidasoa 1915–1979 Fiesole)
Autoritratto, 1940, oil on canvas, 117 x 88 cm, framed
Provenance:
Xavier Bueno Heirs, Fiesole (Florence)
Telemarket, Roncadelle
European Private Collection (acquired from the above in 1998)

Literature:
P. Levi, T. Bueno, Catalogo Generale delle Opere di Xavier Bueno, vol. I (1936–1979), Editoriale Giorgio Mondadori, Milan 1993, p. 68, full page on p. 81
S. Sbarbaro (ed.), Doppio ritratto: Antonio e Xavier Bueno: Contrappunti alla realtà tra avanguardia e figurazione, Polistampa, 2016, p. 58 with ill.
S. Sbarbaro, I Pittori Moderni della Realtà: un’obiezione al Novecento (immagini di verità, un crocevia di illusioni), in “La Forza del Vero. I Pittori Moderni della Realtà”, L'Erma di Bretschneider, 2024, p. 33 with ill.

We, “The Modern Painters of Reality” are gathered in a brotherly group to show our works to the public (…) We are neither interested nor moved by the so-called “abstract” or “pure” painting, procreated by a decaying society, which is empty of any human contents and has retreated into itself, in the vain hope of finding a substance in itself (…) In the face of a new academism or conventionalism, made up of the remnants of cubist formulas and of a standardized impressionistic sensuality, we have exhibited a way of painting that, mindless of fashions or aesthetic theories, is striving to express our feelings through the language that each one of us, according to one’s temperament, has found by looking directly at reality.

Excerpt from the Manifesto of 'Modern Painters of Reality' (Pittori moderni della realtà)
Milan, Italy, November 1947