The exhibition Leonardo Cremonini Painting 1965-2005, consisting of 50 oils, was launched Feb. 23 at the Athinais Cultural Centre's new gallery and will run until 23 March. The show is being curated by art historian and Athinais Art Director Takis Mavrotas. Professor Adriano Baccilieri, former Director of the Fine Arts Academy of Bologna, who has curated Cremonini's exhibitions in Italy, is curating another show by the artist featuring 102 drawings and watercolours (1946-1996), launched Feb. 24 at the Italian Cultural Institute in Athens, Greece and running until 24 March. Director of the Italian Cultural Institute Melita Palestini said that Cremonini's work brings together Italian, French and Greek culture. These two exhibitions are a great moment, a gift, as Leonardo Cremonini, aside from being a great teacher recognised the world over, was also a man emitting warmth to all who approached him, including Greek artists who were taught by him at the National School of Fine Arts of Paris over a 20-year period.
Leonardo Cremonini was born in Bologna November 26, 1925. Suo padre Luigi, ferroviere, inizia a dipingere in gioventù con talento e passione. His father, Luigi, railways, began painting in his youth with talent and passion. Molto presto e in maniera decisiva, suo figlio Leonardo si dedica alla pittura. Very quickly and decisively, his son Leonardo devoted himself to painting.
With a scholarship from the College Venturoli, attended for four years of Fine Arts in Bologna, where his teachers are Alfredo Protti, Giglielmo Pizzirani, Farpi Vignoli, Luciano Minguzzi. Con Guglielmo Pizzirani si lega di profonda amicizia, condivisa con l'amico pittore Dino Boschi. By William Pizzirani ties of deep friendship, shared with his friend painter Dino Boschi.
In 1945, at the end of the war, always with the same scholarship, Cremonini decides to go to Milan to attend the Accademia di Brera and know the cultural environment of the city. His teachers: Italo Valenti, Aldo Carpi and Aldo Salvadori. Già da allora si precisano relazioni amichevoli con Mario Sironi , Giò Ponti, Marco Valsecchi, Lamberto Vitali e Violetta Besesti. Even then specifying friendly relations with Mario Sironi, Gio Ponti, Marco Valsecchi, Lamberto Vitali and Violetta Besesti.
In 1950 he lives and works in Venice, where he met and attended Virgilio Guidi, Peggy Guggenheim and Giuseppe Marchiori.
In 1951 he went to Paris with a scholarship from the French government. We will determine your principal residence, alternating long business trip to the Isle of Ischia, until the end of 1955.
In 1956 a long business trip in Douarnez (Brittany), where he met his friend George Perros
In 1958-59 stayed two full years Panarea in the Aeolian Islands.
In 1963, the union with Giovanna Madonia, linguist, was born his son Peter, now an architect in Paris. Since 1974, divides his life with his wife Roberta Crocioni also a painter.
From 1952 to 1960 exhibited almost exclusively in New York without ever living there. In those years the artists and writers who become his friends are: Gino Severini, Luigi Corbellini, Jacques Brosse, Pierre Emmanuel, Leonor Fini, Jelenski Kot, William Rubin, Gordon Washburn, Duilio Morosini, Claudio Savonuzzi, Francis Bacon, Balthus, Sebastian Matta Delvaux, Giancarlo Menotti, Ivos Margoni, Stanislao Lepri, Alberto Moravia, Dacia Maraini, Jean Dewasne, Michel Butor, Enrico Colombotto Red, Pavel Tchelitcheff, Carlyle Brown, Eugene Berman, Fabrizio Clerici, Stephen Spender, Henry Cartier-Bresson, Margaret Russo Henry of Hesse, Giannetto Fieschi, Gabriel Mattera, Edward Malagoli.
Since 1960, its activity is manifested increasingly in Europe. Continues to live in Paris and alternative business trip to Bertinoro, Procida, Bagheria, Sanlucar de Barrameda in Andalusia, Trouville in Normandy and, even today, Panarea, or in the Florentine hills. The most important retrospective exhibitions were held at museums in Basel, Brussels, Metz, Paris, Prague, Siena, Strasbourg, Spoleto, Tokyo, Bologna, Aosta, Monte Carlo, Grenoble, Toulon, Milan.
In 1965 he received the prize of the Biennale of San Marino, while participating in the 1965 Quadrennial IX National Art in Rome. In 1979 he received the prize of the Italian President to 'Accademia di San Luca.
From 1983 to 1992 he was Chef d'Atelier de Peinture at the Ecole Nationale Superieure de Beaux Art in Paris. Commendable and the Arts et des Lettres in France and a member of the Academie Royale de Belgique, the Accademia Nazionale di San Luca in Rome (of which former President), Academy of Beaux Arts de l'Institut de France, 's Accademia delle Arti del Disegno in Florence.
In 2009 the Association Alberto Buffetti produce the book "Cremonini. Drawings and Watercolors 1946-2006" (edited by Flavio Arens, C. & Allemandi publisher) and for the first time brings together the extensive production on paper the Bolognese master. In 2010 in Athens opened an exhibition at the Italian Institute of Culture and a monograph painting at the Cultural Center Athinais edited by Adriano Baccilieri.
Cremonini lives with his painter wife Roberta Crocioni Grassina between Paris and the hills of Florence.
13.03.2010
