Ernesto Treccani

In December 2009, during the 40th anniversary of the Piazza Fontana bombing, Treccani's painting Un popolo di volti was exhibited at the Royal Palace in Milan. In March 2011, the same venue exhibited the painting Le cinque giornate di Milano on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the unification of Italy. Le parole e la pittura. Ernesto Treccani incontra la poesia, l’epica, il romanzo, Treccani's first posthumous retrospective exhibition, was held at the Pinacoteca Civica of Savona and in 2013 La materia e la luce. Vetri, ceramiche e smalti di Ernesto Treccani at Fondazione Corrente in Milan.

In 2004 he created the cycle of large windows Energia, luci e colori. They were exhibited in Lugano, Riga, Budapest and Prague. In 2006 the town of Forte dei Marmi organized the exhibition Le mutazioni del realismo - Opere inedite 2003-06 at the Fortino. In 2009 another large retrospective exhibition of Treccani's work inaugurated the renovated rooms of Palazzo Barberini in Montichiari, just a few months before his death.

In 1989 the City of Milan held a major retrospective exhibition on the artist at the Royal Palace. Another large retrospective of his works was held at Foundation Bandera in Busto Arsizio in 2003.

Treccani then developed the various features of his artistic research along parallel lines, continuing to work and exhibit in towns and cities in Italy and abroad, and alternating this “nomadic” activity with regular and creative stays in Macugnaga and Forte dei Marmi. In 1978 he founded Fondazione Corrente, a center for cultural events, exhibitions and cultural debates, as well as a center for the collection and study of documents related to Realism.

From the 1960s on, Treccani's prolific works and multiple initiatives demonstrated his continuous commitment to art and culture. Among the works of this period, there are five large paintings inspired by Pavese’s La luna e i falò (1962–63), the cycle of works Da Melissa a Valenza (1964–65), and the series of watercolors inspired by a trip to Cuba. In 1976, major exhibitions of his work were held in Volgograd, at Pushkin Museum in Moscow and at Hermitage in Saint Petersburg. He held also many solo exhibitions in art galleries and museums in Paris, Berlin, Amsterdam, Barcelona, Stuttgart and São Paulo.

Treccani's first solo exhibition was held in 1949 at the Galleria Il Milione in Milan, where he exhibited many times during his artistic path. After his experience with the Italian resistance movement during World War II, he continued his artistic career as leader of the "Pittura" Group and editor of art magazines such as Il 45 and Realismo, together with Raffaele De Grada. In the 1950s his works was selected for the 25th Venice Biennale, as well as for the exhibition on the New Realists held at the Leicester Galleries in London and in New York, where he had a solo show at the Heller Gallery. During this period the subjects of his paintings were influenced by Calabria's rural society and by the urban industrial landscape of Milan and Paris.

Treccani was also an accomplished writer and poet; Some of his books include Arte per amore, Il segreto dell’arte and Un poco di fiele: poesie e disegni (1940–1970).

Vittorio Fagone, Corrente, reprint gennaio 1938-maggio 1940, La nuova foglio, Pollenza, 1978 Marco Valsecchi, Gli artisti di Corrente, Edizioni di Comunità, Milano 1963 Mario De Micheli, Ernesto Treccani, Edizioni del Milione, Milano 1962/> Duilio Morosini, Ernesto Treccani, Milano, Edizioni del Milione, 1949 John Berger, Realist Painters of La Colonna, The Leicester Galleries, London, 1956 First American Exhibition of Paintings by Ernesto Treccani, John Heller Gallery, New York, 1957 Raffaele De Grada, Mostra antologica di Ernesto Treccani, Casa Municipale della Cultura, Livorno, 1958 Retrospective exhibition of Ernesto Treccani. 150 paintings, Puškin Museum, Moscow, 1976 Retrospective exhibition of Ernesto Treccani. 150 paintings, Hermitage, St. Petersburg, 1976 Treccani. Peintures 1975-79, Galerie Béneézit, Paris, 1979 Ernesto Treccani. Malerei. Graphik. Plastik, Ausstellung der Neunen Berliner Galerie im Alten Museum, Berlin, 1982 Ernesto Treccani, Galleria Forni, Amsterdam, 1982 Ernesto Treccani, Real Circulo Artistico Don Quijote de la Mancha, Barcelona, 1987 Ernesto Treccani, Galerie Moderne Italienische Kunst, Stuttgart, 1986 Ernesto Treccani, Paço Des Artes, São Paulo, 1988 Antonio Negri, Studio Museo Treccani, Edizioni del Leone, Venice, 1986 Ernesto Treccani, Arte per amore. Scritti e pagine di diario, Feltrinelli, Milan, 1978 Ernesto Treccani, Il segreto dell'arte, Amadeus, Maser, 1987 Ernesto Treccani, Un poco di fiele : poesie e disegni (1940-1970), Feltrinelli, Milan, 1970 Vittorio Fagone, Lamberto Vitali, Ernesto Treccani, Edizioni del Milione, Milan, 1970 Antonio Negri, Ernesto Treccani: Mostra antologica, Fabbri editore, Milan, 1989 Marina Pizziolo, Ernesto Treccani e il movimento di Corrente, Skira, Milan, 2003 Giorgio Seveso, Silvio Riolfo Marengo, Energia, luci e colori. Le vetrate di Ernesto Treccani, Italian Institute of Culture, Budapest and Prague, 2006 Raffaele De Grada, Ernesto Treccani. Le mutazioni del realismo, opere inedite 2003-2006, Il Fortino, Forte dei Marmi, 2006 Marina Pizziolo, Corrente, le parole della vita. Opere 1930-1945, Skira, Milan, 2008 Giorgio Seveso, Ernesto Treccani, Arte per amore. Dalle poetiche del realismo alla poesia della realtà, Grafo Edizioni, Montichiari, 2009 Giorgio Seveso (a cura di), Le parole e la pittura. Ernesto Treccani incontra la poesia, l’epica, il romanzo, catalogo della mostra, Pinacoteca Civica di Savona, 2011 Maddalena Muzio Treccani, Silvio Riolfo Marengo, Giorgio Seveso, La materia e la luce. Vetri, ceramiche e smalti di Ernesto Treccani, Fondazione Corrente, Milan, 2013

Ernesto Treccani (Milan, 26 August 1920 – Milan, 27 November 2009) was a visual artist, writer and political activist.