Rodolfo Ceccotti biography

Rodolfo Ceccotti is an Italian painter and engraver. He was born in 1945 in Florence, where he still lives and works. From a young age, he dedicated himself to both painting and engraving, being self-taught. The friendships with poets Gatto, Gherardini, and Betocchi and with Florentine painters Capocchini, Vignozzi, Caponi, Scatizzi, and Tirinnanzi were crucial for the development of his poetics, although his points of reference have always been Constable and Turner, Borrani, Sernesi and Fattori, Monet and Friedrich. At just over twenty years old, Rodolfo Ceccotti won a scholarship for young artists from the Municipality of Florence. Subsequently, he was invited to the Fiorino exhibitions in 1971, 1973, and 1977.
In 1974, the artist held his first solo exhibition at the Galleria Inquadrature. In the same year, he created the stained glass windows for the church of San Silvestro in Tobbiana di Prato. From the following year, he began holding solo exhibitions in numerous Italian cities, culminating in the prestigious invitation for a comprehensive retrospective at the Centro Culturale Olivetti in Ivrea in 1979. From then on, he exhibited in numerous national and international group exhibitions.
The characteristic themes of his painting are mainly landscapes characterized by horizons of open skies streaked with clouds, with profiles of trees, bushes, or solitary farmhouses.
In 1984, he was among the five artists chosen by Leonardo Sciascia for the Milan exhibition Artisti e Scrittori at the Rotonda della Besana and was invited to hold a solo exhibition at the Galleria La Tavolozza in Palermo.
After a trip to Sicily in 1986, his paintings and watercolors acquired new colors and shades and were tinged with brightly colored skies covering deserted spaces.
Since 1970, Rodolfo Ceccotti has also started dedicating himself to printmaking, showing a particular preference for etching. He refined his knowledge and technique by attending the workshops of Marco Pistelli and Edi Grafica in Florence, producing over 115 plates. His engravings feature the same landscape subjects present in his paintings.
Numerous are the exhibitions and awards that follow one another also in the field of engraving, among which we recall in 1999 the participation in the group exhibition of artists linked to Il Bisonte in Tokyo at the Edogawa-Ku Center and the Yamagata Cultural Center. In 2000, he won the second edition of the Premio Leonardo Sciascia amateur d’estampes with the work Nuvole attraverso i rami.
Rodolfo Ceccotti also distinguished himself in the academic field by holding the chair of Engraving Techniques at the Academy of Fine Arts of Florence until 2010, the year of his retirement. Since 1996, he has been the educational director of the International School for Art Graphics Il Bisonte of Florence.