Domenico Cantatore biography

Domenico Cantatore, born on March 16, 1906, in Ruvo di Puglia, was a renowned Italian painter, illustrator, and writer. The youngest of eight siblings, Cantatore experienced a childhood marked by poverty and hunger. However, at 18 years old, thanks to Benedetto Nardi, he began a career as a room decorator, thus approaching his true passion: art.
In 1922, he first moved to Rome, where he reunited with his brother Giuseppe Cantatore, also a painter, and then to Milan in 1925. Here he began painting, becoming part of the group of artists associated with the Corrente movement. In 1930, he held his first solo exhibition at the Galleria d'arte moderna in Milan. In Milan, he formed important friendships with artists such as Carlo Carrà, Alfonso Gatto, Leonardo Sinisgalli and the Nobel Prize winner Salvatore Quasimodo, as well as Raffaele Carrieri, his close friend from Puglia.
In 1932, with the help of a friend, Domenico Cantatore moved to Paris, where he deepened his knowledge of the Impressionists, the painting of Pablo Picasso, Amedeo Modigliani and Henri Matisse, and the Fauves movement. During his stay in Paris, he also met the Italian artists Carlo Levi and Filippo de Pisis. He returned to Milan in 1934, exhibiting the drawings from his Parisian period at the Galleria del Milione.
Recognized at the European level, in 1940 Domenico Cantatore obtained the chair of Figure at the Accademia di belle arti di Brera, succeeding Aldo Carpi. He taught there until 1976, when he offered the chair to his student Natale Addamiano. In 1948, he met Giorgio Morandi, from whom he learned realism.
Participates in numerous prestigious art events, including the Premio Bergamo, the Biennale di Venezia, and the Quadriennale di Roma. In 1956, Domenico Cantatore travels to Spain, where he rediscovers the warm and bright colors of the south. This journey marks a change in his artistic style: until the 1980s, he focuses on landscapes and human figures, with particular attention to Southern Italy. He paints sunsets, hilly landscapes, the "gnarled" men of the south, the rites of the Ruvese Holy Week, and women, sometimes in traditional southern attire or depicted as "odalisques".
In addition to painting, he also dedicates himself to writing, publishing his youthful memoirs and stories such as Il pittore di stanze (1944) and Ritorno al paese (1966). In 1965, a large event is organized in his honor in Ruvo di Puglia, which Quasimodo also attends. On this occasion, Domenico Cantatore receives a gold medal.
In the last thirty years of his life, Domenico Cantatore collaborated with other artists, such as Bianchi, sharing techniques and subjects that made his art popular and recognizable. He frequented the Marche and Montefiore dell'Aso, places that inspired many of his landscapes. As a sign of gratitude, he donated a collection of graphic works to the Municipality, which are now housed in the "Polo museale di San Francesco."
Domenico Cantatore dies on May 22, 1998, at the age of 92, while visiting the places of his youth in Paris. He leaves behind an artistic legacy of great value, characterized by works of graphic art, such as etchings, aquatints, drypoints, lithographs, and serigraphs, which continue to be admired and studied.