Sergio Ceccotti (born 1935 in Rome) is an Italian painter. He lives and works in Rome.

Biography

He first studied at the Internationale Sommerakademie für Bildende Kunst in

Salzburg Salzburg is the List of cities and towns in Austria, fourth-largest city in Austria. In 2020 its population was 156,852. The city lies on the Salzach, Salzach River, near the border with Germany and at the foot of the Austrian Alps, Alps moun ...

under the direction of

Oskar Kokoschka Oskar Kokoschka (1 March 1886 – 22 February 1980) was an Austrian artist, poet, playwright and teacher, best known for his intense expressionistic portraits and landscapes, as well as his theories on vision that influenced the Viennese Expre ...

and attended then the drawing courses of the

French Academy in Rome The French Academy in Rome (, ) is an academy located in the Villa Medici, within the Villa Borghese, on the Pincio (Pincian Hill) in Rome, Italy. History The Academy was founded at the Palazzo Capranica in 1666 by Louis XIV under the dire ...

from 1956 to 1961. In the 1950s and early 1960s, Sergio Ceccotti's work shows influence of

cubism Cubism is an early-20th-century avant-garde art movement which began in Paris. It revolutionized painting and the visual arts, and sparked artistic innovations in music, ballet, literature, and architecture. Cubist subjects are analyzed, broke ...

, of

Giorgio de Chirico Giuseppe Maria Alberto Giorgio de Chirico ( ; ; 10 July 1888 – 20 November 1978) was an Italian artist and writer born in Greece. In the years before World War I, he founded the art movement, which profoundly influenced the surrealists. His ...

to whom he was compared, and, above all, of the

German Expressionism Expressionism is a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Northern Europe around the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it radi ...

. He felt very close to the Masters of the

New Objectivity The New Objectivity (in ) was a movement in German art that arose during the 1920s as a reaction against German Expressionism, expressionism. The term was coined by Gustav Friedrich Hartlaub, the director of the ''Kunsthalle Mannheim, Kunsthalle' ...

and engaged an intellectual correspondence with some of them, like

Otto Dix Wilhelm Heinrich Otto Dix (; 2 December 1891 – 25 July 1969) was a German painter and Printmaking, printmaker, noted for his ruthless and harshly realistic depictions of German society during the Weimar Republic and the brutality of war. Alon ...

, Conrad Felixmüller and

Ludwig Meidner Ludwig Meidner (18 April 1884 – 14 May 1966) was a German expressionist painter and printmaker born in Bernstadt, Silesia. Meidner is best known for his painted, drawn, and printed portraits and landscapes, but is especially noted for his ...

. At the beginning of the 1960s, the influence of film noir movies and comic strips turn his painting into a more narrative style. The use of the code of film noir makes the real uncertain and the reading of comic enables him to add numerous objects in the minimum space to get more intensity. From that date, his paintings were regularly shown in Italian and French galleries as well as museums in Europe. His etchings were published in limited edition books of French and Italian poets like Jacques Baron, Georges-Emmanuel Clancier, Jean-Pierre Biondi and Giorgio Vigolo. He has also illustrated books and made front covers for the surrealist writer

Philippe Soupault Philippe Soupault (2 August 1897 – 12 March 1990) was a French writer and poet, novelist, critic, and political activist. He was active in Dadaism and later was instrumental in founding the Surrealist movement with André Breton. Soupault ini ...

who wrote a text on his painting in 1980, "L'Insolite quotidien". The portrait that Sergio Ceccotti made of the writer was shown in the exhibition, "Philippe Soupault, le surréalisme et quelques amis" at the Musée du Montparnasse in 2007. Sergio Ceccotti's painting reflects paradoxes and fears of contemporary metropolis with his global visions of based on heterogeneous elements:

fotonovela Photo comics are a form of sequential storytelling using photographs rather than illustrations for the images, along with the usual comics conventions of narrative text and word balloons containing dialogue. They are sometimes referred to in ...

Alfred Hitchcock Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock (13 August 1899 – 29 April 1980) was an English film director. He is widely regarded as one of the most influential figures in the history of cinema. In a career spanning six decades, he directed over 50 featu ...

films, mass media, roman noir and contemporary novels, art history and breaking news. His art reveals a metaphysical, sociological and almost mysterious vision of daily life. In 2014, the

Villa Torlonia (Rome) Villa Torlonia is a villa and surrounding gardens in Rome, Italy, formerly belonging to the Torlonia family. It is entered from the via Nomentana. Design It was designed by the Neoclassical architect Giuseppe Valadier. Construction began in 18 ...

museum devoted a retrospective exhibition to him, showing more than eighty paintings from 1958 to 2014 in the pavilion of the Casino dei Principi. In 2018, the

Palazzo delle Esposizioni The Palazzo delle Esposizioni is a Neoclassicism, neoclassical exhibition hall, cultural center and museum on Via Nazionale (Rome), Via Nazionale in Rome, Italy. History Designed by Pio Piacentini, it opened in 1883. It has housed several exhi ...

celebrates the sixty years of activity of the painter by hosting the exhibition “''Sergio Ceccotti. Il romanzo della pittura 1958-2018''” curated by Cesare Biasini Selvaggi.

Solo exhibitions (selection)

* 1977: galerie Liliane François, Paris * 1979: galerie Liliane François, Paris * 1985: galerie Jan de Maere, Bruxelles * 1987: Galleria Comunale d'Arte Contemporanea, Arezzo * 1988: galerie Jan de Maere & Ozenne, Paris * 1990: galerie Alain Blondel, Paris * 1992: galerie Alain Blondel, Paris * 1993: Upplands Konstmuseum, Uppsala * 2000: La Musique du temps, galerie Alain Blondel, Paris * 2003: Cloître des Cordeliers, Tarascon * 2004: Galleria d'Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Anticoli Corrado * 2006: ''Roman parisien'', galerie Alain Blondel, Paris * 2009: ''Soupçon'', galerie Alain Blondel, Paris. Galeria Tondinelli, Rome * 2010: ''Las Colores de la vida'', Centro Cultural Borges, Buenos Aires * 2013: ''Histoires sans histoire'', galerie Alain Blondel, Paris * 2014: ''La vita enigmistica'', Musei di Villa Torlonia – Casino dei Principe, Rome. ''Capolinea 19'' La Stellina Arte Contemporanea, Rome. ''Lumières. Dolci malinconie'', Galleria Elle Arte, Palerme * 2018: ''Sergio Ceccotti. Il romanzo della pittura 1958-2018'', Palazzo delle Esposizioni, Rome * 2024: ''Sergio Ceccotti. Temps de mystères'', Galerie Jean-Marie Oger, Paris

Collective exhibitions (selection)

* 1971–1975: Salon de la jeune peinture, Paris * 1974: ''Le Mythe de la Société Moderne vue à travers la machine'', galerie la Passerelle Saint-Louis, Paris * 1979: ''Ville Matrice, Ville Matricule'', galerie Pierre Lescot, Paris * 1983: ''Tel peintre, Quels maîtres ?'', galerie ABCD, Paris * 1985: ''L’Italie d’aujourd’hui – Italia oggi'', CNAC Villa Arson, Nice * 1988: ''Signes, schémas, images'', Acropolis, Nice. ''Reality'', Artemis gallery, Bruxelles * 1989: ''Regards sur la Révolution française'', galerie Liliane François, Paris * 1990: ''Collection Liliane François'', Centre d’arts plastiques, Royan * 1997: ''Philippe Soupault, l’inconnu, l’amour, la poésie'', Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris * 2003: ''Futuro Italiano'', Parlement Européen, Bruxelles. Geografie del mistero. ''Metafisica, dada, surrealismo'', Il Narciso, galleria d´arte contemporanea, Rome. Cuore Selvaggio, galleria Annovi, Sassuolo * 2005: ''Pittori figurativi italiani nella seconda metà del XX secolo'', Fondo Mole Vanvitelliana, Ancona * 2006: ''Sinfonia urbana – Echi dalla città'', Il Narciso, galleria d´arte contemporanea, Rome * 2007: ''Philippe Soupault, le surréalisme et quelques amis'', Musée de Montparnasse, Paris * 2008: ''Love'', Palazzo Ducale, Genoa * 2011: ''Ah, che rebus – Cinque secoli di enigma fra arte e gioco in Italia'', Istituto Nazionale per la Grafica, Rome * 2012: 54. Biennale di Venezia, Padiglione Italia, Regione Lazio, Museo Nazionale del Palazzo di Venezia, Rome * 2016: ''Still life – Style of life'', Jean-Marie Oger, Paris

Public and private collections (selection)

Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna The ("National Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art"), also known as La Galleria Nazionale, is an art museum in Rome. It was founded in 1883 on the initiative of the then minister Guido Baccelli and is dedicated to modern and contemporary ar ...

, Rome; Vatican Museums, Modern Religious Art collection; Galleria d’Arte Moderna, Bologna; Galleria Comunale d’Arte Contemporanea, Arezzo; Pinacoteca “C. Barbella”, Chieti; Civica Pinacoteca, San Gimignano; Galleria Civica d’Arte Moderna, Santhià; Museo del Pattinaggio, Finale Emilia; Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris; Bibliothèque Littéraire Jacques Doucet, Paris; Staatliches Museum Lindenau, Altenburg; Museo Renato Guttuso, Bagheria; Banca d’Italia, Rome; Banca Nazionale del Lavoro, Rome; La Compagnie Financière Edmond de Rothschild, Paris; Bulgari, Rome; Provincia Regionale di Palermo; Università degli studi di Palermo, polo museale.

Biography

Solo exhibitions (selection)

Collective exhibitions (selection)

Public and private collections (selection)

See also

Bibliography

External links

References