Man working in Orange Orchard
Renato Guttuso (Bagheria 1912 - Rome 1987)
Category
Art / Drawings and watercolours
Date
1952
Materials
Gouache on paper
Measurements
587 x 508 mm
Place of origin
Italy
Order this imageCollection
Mottisfont, Hampshire
NT 769737
Summary
Gouache on paper, Man working in Orange Orchard by Renato Guttuso (Bagheria 1912 - Rome 1987), 1952. Guttuso was a Sicilian who lived in Rome, and a friend of Derek Hill – this work is inscribed as a gift to him. Fiercely anti-fascist, Guttuso joined the Communist Part and became deeply socially engaged. Rural workers were an important theme for him. He wrote in 1950 that he wanted to honour Sicilian peasants who hold the primary position in my heart, because I am one of them; whose faces come in front of my eyes no matter what I do; Sicilian peasants so important in the history of Italy. He chose colours that expressed the passion and emotion he felt about his subject, weaving elements observed from real life into compositions that had an unreal, mythical quality. From the rich red earth springs life and food, nurtured by the worker whose action pose emphasises the back-breaking labour required to produce the fruit in the foreground.
Provenance
Presented by Derek Hill (1916 - 2000) through The National Art Collections Fund (Art Fund) in 1996
Credit line
Mottisfont Abbey,The Derek Hill Collection (presented to the National Trust through the National Art-Collections Fund in 1996)
Makers and roles
Renato Guttuso (Bagheria 1912 - Rome 1987), artist