VIRGILIO GUIDI ARTWORKS

Virgilio Guidi was an Italian painter, poet and essayist who left a significant mark on the artistic panorama of the 20th century. Born in Rome in 1891 into an artistic family, with his father a sculptor and his grandfather an architect, he developed a strong artistic inclination from a young age. After attending the Technical Institute in Rome, where he developed a passion for geometry and drawing, Virgilio Guidi took evening courses at the Free School of Painting to cultivate his passion.
In 1908, he left the Technical Institute and joined the workshop of the restorer and decorator Giovanni Capranesi, who soon promoted him as his first assistant. However, in 1911, due to disagreements regarding the trends of modern painting, he left Capranesi's studio and enrolled at the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome. During this period, he studied works by artists such as Giotto, Piero della Francesca, Correggio and the French Chardin and Courbet. He also began to reflect on light as a determining element of his paintings and to write about his thoughts and artistic theories.
In 1913, he took part in and won the Lana painting competition organized by the Academy and began to exhibit his first works. In 1914, during an exhibition of the Società Amatori e Cultori di Belle Arti in Rome, Virgilio Guidi came into direct contact with the works of Cézanne and Matisse. Cézanne's study of form and color helps him overcome the influences of his pan-Germanic education. During this period, his reflections range between Cézanne and the fifteenth-century Italian tradition, without neglecting the chromaticism of artists such as Renoir and Armando Spadini.
In 1915, he participated in the III International Art Exhibition of the Roman Secession. However, to support the economic needs of his family, in 1916 Virgilio Guidi was forced to work as a draftsman at the Civil Engineering Department in Rome. Between 1920 and 1923 he painted some of his most important paintings, exhibiting them at the XIII Venice Biennale in 1922. He began selling his works and attended the third room of the Caffè Aragno, where he came into contact with important artistic personalities of the time, including Giorgio De Chirico, Giuseppe Ungaretti and Roberto Longhi.
>In 1924, the artist achieved success at the XIV Venice Biennale with his painting Tram. Critics praised the work and it established itself internationally. Despite the offer of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg to purchase the work, Virgilio Guidi preferred that it remain in Italy, and it is now exhibited at the Gallery of Modern Art in Rome. In 1926, he participated in the first exhibition of the "Novecento Italiano" in Milan, while maintaining a certain autonomy with respect to the directions of the movement. The same year, he married Adriana Bernardi, a sculptor with whom he had studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome.
Between 1928 and 1929, he participated in the XVI Venice Biennale, where he presented one of the most significant works of his Venetian period, entitled Giudecca, in which the midday light blocks the image in absolute spatiality. Over the years, the artist continues to write about his painting journey and publish his thoughts on painting. He exhibited in numerous exhibitions, including the XVIII Venice Biennale and the II Rome Quadrennial.
In 1935, due to the hostility of the Venetian environment, Virgilio Guidi decided to move to Bologna, where he taught at the Academy of Fine Arts. However, he maintains a studio in Venice. He exhibited in several important exhibitions, including the XX Venice Biennale in 1936 and the Twentieth-Century Italian Art exhibition in 1949.
During the 1940s, he began writing poetry and devoted himself to graphics, producing a series of lithographs. The artist's pictorial research develops through recurring thematic and compositional cycles, exploring the relationship between light, form and color. His paintings approach abstraction, but always maintain a close connection with reality.
Virgilio Guidi continues to exhibit regularly and obtains numerous awards, such as the medal for culture from the Presidency of the Italian Republic in 1961. In the last years of his life, he continued to paint and dedicate himself to poetry. The poetic activity becomes a daily constant and will be published in various collections.
In 1984, at the age of 92, he died in Venice during an exhibition of his latest paintings. He is buried in the monumental cemetery of San Michele in Venice. The figure of Virgilio Guidi remains a cornerstone of 20th century Italian art, with his constant research on light and his ability to express deep emotions and reflections through painting and poetry. His artistic legacy continues to inspire and influence subsequent generations of artists.