Bruno Saetti (1902-1984) - 4 acqueforti

Bruno Saetti (Bologna 1902 – Bologna 1984), 4 original etchings. 1979. Sheet dimensions cm 50 x 35. All signed and numbered X/XX. In excellent condition – one with a marginal fold. Without reserve.

Bruno Saetti (Bologna, November 21, 1902 – Bologna, July 10, 1984) was an Italian painter and engraver.
He completed his studies in 1924 at the Academy of Fine Arts in Bologna. In 1927, he exhibited for the first time in a solo show organized by the Società Promotrice per le Belle Arti 'Francesco Francia'. In 1928, he was admitted to the Venice Biennale with 'Judgment of Paris', which he participated in again for 14 editions (he took part in the 1938 exhibition with a solo room and received awards in the 1950s). In 1929, he won the Baruzzi prize with 'Bathers' and exhibited at the International Exhibition in Barcelona, which established his reputation in the art scene. In 1930, he became a teacher at the Academy of Fine Arts in Venice and served as its director from 1950 to 1956. Among his students were Giorgio Bordini, Olghina di Robilant, Federico De Rocco, and Riccardo Schweizer. In 1931, he participated for the first time in the Rome Quadriennale and continued to participate until 1972.

Since 1935, he began practicing the fresco technique after a visit to Pompeii. Saetti is primarily a master of fresco painting. Among his most well-known frescoes are the Sacra Famiglia (1958, University of Padua) and Colloquio con l'angelo (1974, fresco on canvas in the Modern Art Gallery of Bologna). The technique called 'propriamente parietale' is chosen for cycles of sacred buildings (at San Martino di Lupari, in the Basilica of Sant'Eugenio in Rome, and in the church of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Bologna); however, Saetti is also known for easel painting, for canvases on which fresco is applied (for example, Madre veneziana, 1937, Modern Art Gallery of Rome), and aesthetically, in lithographs, where the prepared paper reproduces the rough wall surface. Now an expert in the field, he was invited by the Japanese government to speak on the subject at the conference held at the University of Tokyo in 1970.

He also worked in the field of graphics (drawings, engravings, lithographs), glass decorations, and mosaics. He was also a sacred art painter and participated in numerous exhibitions with this theme. In 1961, he created a relief made of glass tesserae in the church of San Giovanni Battista in Florence (also known as the Church of the Autostrada del Sole).

In 1949-1950, at the request of entrepreneur Giuseppe Verzocchi, who wanted to create a large collection of paintings themed around work, he produced La mondina, a work that includes a self-portrait and is now part of the Verzocchi Collection, housed in the Civic Art Gallery of Forlì.

He participated in major international exhibitions organized by the Venice Biennale, which took place in Prague, Warsaw, Krakow, Budapest, Vienna, Sofia, and Bucharest. Finally, he held a retrospective exhibition in Venice in 1975 and another in Florence in 1979.

He disappeared in 1984 at the age of 82. His funeral monument, in the Campo Carducci of the Certosa di Bologna, was designed by him.

Exhibitions
After his death, Palazzo Strozzi in Florence organized a comprehensive retrospective. His works are featured in major Italian museums (including the Museo Novecento in Florence and MAMbo in Bologna) and abroad (Amsterdam, Madrid, Warsaw, Zagreb, Zurich, Tokyo), and have been the subject of important exhibitions: notable are the retrospectives held in 1974 and 1981 at the Galleria d'arte moderna in Bologna (dedicated to graphic production) and the exhibition of large-scale mosaic works in Prato, at Palazzo Pretorio (1981). In 2002, on the occasion of the centenary of his birth, the '56' gallery in Bologna paid tribute to him. Between late 2004 and early 2005, at Palazzo Sarcinelli in Conegliano (TV), the retrospective Bruno Saetti 1902-1984 - Between Intimism and Sublimation was held, curated by Rossana Bossaglia.

Poetica
Painter of sensual female nudes, motherhood, and landscapes, but also of symbolic figures like angels, Saetti rejected the languages of the avant-garde, establishing himself with an expressionist realism supported by strict compositional rigor.

Opere