Uffizi Galleries acquires two new paintings by Renato Foresti

The collections of the Uffizi Galleries have been enriched with two new paintings thanks to a donation from the children of Neapolitan artist Renato Foresti and thanks to Professor Maria Luisa Foresti Sestini. In 1959 the City of Florence acquired for the Gallery of Modern Art in Palazzo Pitti the Portrait of Pietro Bernardini by the same artist, and recently theAccademia delle Arti del Disegno celebrated Foresti with the exhibition Renato Foresti 1900-1973, on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of his last exhibition in 1958.

In conjunction with the acquisition ofSelf-Portrait ’62 (1962) and School of Painting (1952), the corpus of paintings, drawings and documents was rearranged to give a renewed critical appraisal of the artist, relating the artistic, human and ideal values of his work to postwar art in Florence.

His works depicted an industrial landscape that he experienced firsthand: portraits, domestic subjects from familiar lexicons, and subjects from theworking environment, such as workers, gasometers, and machines. Even in the self-portraits and portraits Foresti manages to capture the peculiar characteristics and temperament of people. And again, the still lif es are characterized by a subtle sweetness and a nostalgic vein.

According to the testimony of his friends and children, Renato Foresti would see on the still blank canvas the work already completed, without the need to make a preparatory drawing: he would hold the palette and after very few brushstrokes he would begin to see the painting in its final form.

“His work testifies even today how art is not antithetical to a world of science and technology. On the contrary, it is precisely thanks to the tools of his industrial work-factories, workshops and machinery-that Foresti’s portraits acquire vividness. An everyday painting that is not escapism, but a way to reflect and narrate his own world by analyzing the complex relationship between man and machine,” commented the director of the Uffizi Galleries, Eike Schmidt.

Uffizi Galleries acquires two new paintings by Renato Foresti

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