Biography

Luciano Guarnieri is a Florentine painter, born in Florence in 1930. Very young he entered the studio of the master Pietro Annigoni, of whom he became a favorite pupil. To make him famous in Tuscany and all over the world is a folder of drawings from 1954 dedicated to the reconstruction of the Santa Trinita bridge. The postwar years directed the artist towards a vision of his work as a noble profession, related to the world of artisans. He is a generous man, a lover of the city of him and very sensitive to the appeals of Humanism. During his life, and in times of peace, Luciano travels a lot for his career and artistic production: United States, Prague, Ireland, Mexico, China… Everywhere he captures personal images of reality and special encounters: in the USA he portrays actresses from Hollywood, knows John and Jacqueline Kennedy or NASA astronauts in Cape Canaveral, for example. But Guarnieri is also a civil artist, he sings strongly about the life of the humble all over the world. He is convinced that the reasons for human existence lead to hope, a resource that no violence can truly ever oppress. He died in his hometown at 79, in 2009.

Philosophy

A lover of drawing and frescoes, Luciano Guarnieri immediately established himself as a figurative artist capable of expressiveness and incisiveness in representation due to the excellent sign that allowed him, from the age of fifteen, to trace on paper notes of buildings, squares and landscapes that he can observe. from the high window of his studio in Florence. With maestro Annigoni, he learns to use light in an exemplary way and soon develops a natural predisposition to the fresco technique. Luciano Guarnieri is an emotional painter and the tragic events that hit Florence make him an observer and critical witness: he painted the flood of November 4, 1966 working in the rubble and then stared at the mafia massacre in via dei Georgofili in 1993 in 46 drawings and watercolours preserved in a room of the Academy of Fine Arts. His continuous wandering led him to know very different realities and strong sensations that he has always translated into painting: historical events such as the American landing on the Moon in 1969 but also stories of peoples such as the land of Israel that reveals to him the pleasure of living or intimate unforgettable moments like the Irish skies observed in their slow changing. His works are now kept in the Uffizi Department of Drawings and Prints and in the Vieusseux Archive, also in Florence, but also at the Ford Foundation in New York and in other museums and churches in Tuscany and around the world.

Artwork in Castagno

In line with the numerous works created not only for public buildings, but also in churches, this work by Luciano Guarnieri pays homage to the Tuscan pictorial tradition. The artist’s production is characterized by a series of works, in particular frescoes, born from impressions captured in his numerous travels, with the ability to describe contemporary events in a refined and sensitive way. In this case, The Passion tells a biblical event through its typical immediate and fast narrative and intimistic vein, with attention paid to simple details of the figures just outlined, depicted within a polychrome scenario. The episode represented is that of the ascent to Calvary told in the Canonical Gospels, the moment chosen is the one in which Jesus is still wearing the purple cloak which will then be removed from him. The work created on a terracotta tile was recently placed (in 2021) by Simonetta Paloscia, daughter of the critic Tommaso, on the facade of the family home in La Vigna (Castagno).

By Luciano Guarnieri, in Castagno there are two other works: the fresco Luglio (July) painted in 1975, located in the heart of the village, part of the 12 frescoes that make up the very first collection of the open-air museum, and the one created a few years later, in 1982, inside the small church (above the entrance, high up on the wall) representing San Francesco, patron saint of the town (celebrated every first Sunday in October with the traditional Tortellata alla castagnola).

A curiosity: for the characters to be portrayed, man or woman, the artist often asked his wife and muse Dolores Angleton (known in the United States) to work as a model. It happened for many works and must have also happened here in Castagno: in fact, we can see a certain similarity between the female face of July and that of San Francesco. Find out more by reading the fact sheet on Luglio (July).