Giuseppe Santomaso (Venice 1907 - Venice 1990)

Giuseppe Santomaso was born in Venice in 1907. Devoted to painting from a very early age, while still a student at the Academy of Fine Arts in his native city he exhibited in collective shows at the Bevilacqua La Masa, then at the Biennale, where he debuted in 1934 and where he would participate on numerous occasions, and at the Quadriennale of Rome. In 1939 he held his first solo show in Paris, a city whose visual culture would make a profound and lasting impression on the artist.
In the post-war period – bound by his ties of friendship and community of purpose to Viani, Vedova, Birolli and Giuseppe Marchiori – he first joined the Fronte Nuovo delle Arti, then the Group of Eight, with which he unreservedly shared the Abstract-Concrete poetics supported by Lionello Venturi. He exhibited frequently with his companions in both groups. He also held solo shows in Europe, the United States and Latin America, which were consistently successful and well-received by critics (throughout his career Santomaso was awarded numerous prizes for his work). Over the years his elegant, refined art, which in the 1950s and 1960s was inclined towards the most modern trends of the time (first Neo-Cubist, then based on signs, then material) wedded, at various times, Braque to Léger, Mirò to Hartung and Afro to Scialoja. His authentic, continuous note was always colour, rooted in his Venetian origins.
He died in Venice in 1990, amid universal esteem.