Aristide Gattavecchia

20th century Italian painter and sculptor

Featured works

"La Bruna 80" 1980 - mixed media on 30x24 plastic

  • EXHIBITED AT PALAZZO XIMENENS-PANCIATICH – FLORENCE, ITALY (June 9th-11th 2023)

"Gattavecchia experienced the wars and profound crises that shocked the twentieth century, a century in which the individualism of artists reached its peak. His works tell of violence, fear, loneliness, incommunicability, marginalization. An expressionist like Munch, the woman emerges from the darkness, marked by the diaphanous light and with a gaze resigned into the void: yet those red plump lips do not hide her beauty and passion”.
(comment by Professor Vittorio Sgarbi)

"Thoughts II"  1948 (tempera on cardboard 46x32)

    • CURRENTLY ON EXHIBITION AT ARTEXPO – NYC, USA (April 4th-7th 2024)

    • Included in the Atlas of Contemporary Art ed. 2021 DeAgostini


    7 mask-faces are represented, clinging to each other, suspended in time. No mouths can be seen but only black eyes, which make them look similar to skulls.

    The red color that "dirties" them reminds us of the horrors of war. It was 1948 and the past sufferings were still vivid and painful.

    The Artist expresses his profound anguish of existing.

    The thoughts that crowd the mind are like lifeless heads, floating in a surreal dimension that is nothing other than pure subconscious.

    "The Stroll" 1987 - tempera on plastic 80x54

    • EXHIBITED AT “TRIENNALE DI ROMA”, SAN SALVATORE IN LAURO MUSEUM – ROME, ITALY
       (December 1      st-15th 2023)

    • EXHIBITED AT THE FIRST EDITION OF PALLAVICINI ART PRIZE – BOLOGNA, ITALY
       (September 9      th-18th 2022)

    Two distinct floors, representing the division of social classes. Above, slender figures, enveloped in light, walking elegantly, upright. Below, awkward bodies, moving in a dark tunnel. There is no possibility of improving one's status, the dividing line is clear and has no openings. The artist was very sensitive to social issues and inequalities.



    Extract from "The poetics of differences" in search of a new Humanism - edited by Stefania Pieralice – 5th Triennial Exhibition of Visual Arts in Rome - ed. 2023: “


    “The Stroll (1987) achieves a psychological restlessness, a mysterious discomfort expressed with limited means in the pictorial field divided by a clear caesura.

    In the two-tone Scanavino-style composition, oblong and slender figures with Giacometti-esque bodies walk at a calm pace. A graceful atmospheric sheen envelops them and, like the wounded mind, is then tinged with a deep black.

    The narrative beauty advances despite the clear division of the planes: the white colors return little by little, they accumulate on top of new details, they develop a suffocating state of mind.

    Desperate propagation of the dark fog, a shroud extends; black and white has lost its silhouette, the clear lines slip fleetingly. Dense and pasty brushstrokes paint static bodies in a vague haze.

    Renegades are born. Like achromatic nightmares, they move massive and inelegant in the unequal society.

    Crude representation of the disillusionment of human bonds, they are detached from the perfection of the Empyrean, they reach the soot of the Underworld. From the brilliant screen at the top, the commanders decide the fate, the truths, the common rights.

    Stuck in another ungraceful night where the darkness has never been so bright, the obedient fall from the immeasurable height, retreating, only a dark road ahead with shining souls to lead the way. Locked in the silent, all-consuming struggle, they forget that they are their own darkness and their own light”.

    "Together" 1987 - mixed media on plastic 70x50


    This painting deals with the theme of homosexuality, which has been discriminated against for a long time. In those years homosexuality was still seen as a deviance or disease, so it was necessary to hide and experience it exclusively in a private place. In the painting, the two lovers find themselves in a closed environment where they can embrace each other freely.


    "Studio di Corpi I" 1976 - tempera on plastic 65x48

    • Included in the Atlas of Contemporary Art ed. 2021 DeAgostini publisher

      The artist dedicated himself all his life to both painting and sculpture. He often depicted in his paintings the depth and volume of the sculpture he would later create.

    "Indifference" 1979 - mixed media on 24x43 cardboard

    • Exhibited at the Triennale di Roma 2021

    Five male faces created with the sole use of brown colors stand out on a monochromatic surface. Four are closer and only one, almost like a fifth figure, appears in profile, with his mouth open. The choice to represent half-closed eyes is striking, in the explicit desire not to create empathy, nor suggest a relationship with the external user of the canvas. The lack of communication and indifference also exists between the five characters: they are close, but each is closed in on himself, in his own silent selfishness. Presented with extreme formal stylization and typified as if they were masks, these faces become symbols of the alienation and isolation that grips contemporary society.

    "Introspection" 1984 - tempera on plastic 65x45

    • Exhibited at Medina Roma 2020 (event: Premio della Lupa)

    In an attitude of prayer, the main subject sees his most intimate part coming out of himself. So he can observe it and analyze it deeply.

    "White vases" 1990 - mixed media on canvas 76x46

    • Exhibited at European Pavilion – VENICE, ITALY (2019)

    For Gattavecchia the bottles represented people. He saw them as containers, sometimes white, sometimes black, but always impenetrable, mysterious, suspended in time and space.

    "La Bruna" 1960 - charcoal on cardboard 40x30


    It is one of the very few portraits painted by the artist. Here too, although physiognomic elements return to identify the subject, the sense of introspection always prevails in the complex brushwork, in the accentuated synthesis, in the insistence on monochrome.

    A strong feeling pervades this face which avoids the gaze, as if it does not want to show the internal suffering.

    .

    "Winter Landscape I" 1991 - mixed media on canvas 75x95


    When the Artist created this painting, he was 84 years old and already ill. He perceives his near end and paints panoramas without colours, without presences, wrapped only in the grayness and cold of winter. For the Artist the theme of abandonment becomes more heartbreaking and intense.


    "Naked bodies" 1983 - mixed media on canvas 80x65

    "Nocturnal" 1961 - charcoal on paperar 22x40


    The work represents a landscape of his beloved city, Cesena. Here the investigation into nature disappears to leave room for the expression of an existence, for a profoundly spiritual image in the profile of the town which stands out against muted glows.

    Aristide Gattavecchia

    Pittore e Scultore

    Cesena  - FC -  Italy
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