Biography

Completes Biography

1928 – 1951

FROM BIRTH TO ADOLESCENCE – FROM SICILY TO WAR

Giuseppe Gambino (“Pino”) was born on October 6th in Vizzini (Catania) from Agata Linguaci and Carmelo Gambino. His father’s work, civil servant and then secretary of the Fine Arts Commission, will bring the Gambino family to move to various Italian cities of art and to often dwell in the palaces in which he works.

During Giuseppe’s second year of life they move to Rome and then to Verona, before moving in 1930 at the Palazzo Ducale in Mantua, in which the family will be hosted for the next nine years.

The year 1939 sees the turn of the Galleria Estense in Modena, where Carmelo Gambino has been invited to work, and where the family will stay until 1943.

It’s 1944 and, in the midst of WW2, the Gambino move to Guiglia, in the Appennines. Once again their residence correspond to the place in which Giuseppe’s father works: Castello Monrecucoli, in which Carmelo works along with Pietro Zamperci, supervisor for the artistic heritage of the storage set-up for the works of art evacuated from Emilia and Piemonte in order to preserve them from bombardment.

This is the period in which Giuseppe commence to draw and paint, as Pietro Zampetti attests: “his father, unbeknown to Giuseppe, every so often, showed me that papers: created without complacency, they appeared as a direct message of a consciousness discovering the world, and feeling it as a true one, well beyond the hell in which he found himself. It seems to me an incredible thing how, without any kind of Master, he could express himself with such confidence and communication skills”.

In the meantime the area had become the scene of bloody conflicts between partisans and German troops. The latter sent Gambino to a camp work in which he was constricted to pick up the corpses and wash the one by one to then recollect them into the coffins.

Young Pino’s psyche and body commence now to become more and more weaken that he has to be ricovered in a sanatorium. This forced recovery will bring him to often covertly escape from the hospital and to go the rare dance hall of the time, where he could find inspirations for his drawings, always done in a second moment.

Until 1950, five years after the end of the war, Giuseppe will move from a sanatorium to another, among which we remember that of Gaiato and Pavullo nel Frignano.

1951 – 1956

THE CHOICE TO BE A PAINTER: FROM WAR TO REBIRTH

In 1951 the Gambinos come back to Sicily, dwelling first in Catania and then in Monreale; here, in a solo exhibit at the Hotel Savoia, Giuseppe exposes his work for the first time.

After having been recovered from the disease he contracted during WW2 (thanks by a pulmonary lobotomy), Gambino commences to feel caged by his native island.

In the same year the young painter is called to participate to two collective art exhibition: one in Pavullo and the other in Sassuolo, both near Modena.

In 1953 Giuseppe moves to Bologna where, for a short period, he work for a typography.

Here takes place a very important meeting, that of the painter Nino Cafè, at the time interested in advertising grapich design. This encounter will lead Gambino to apprehend the new technique and to officially be part of the world of art.

It is 1954 and for Gambino sees Venice for the first time; he feels astonished more than ever: “I remember the day of my arrival: I walked for hours and hours with my suitcase by the hand. I was enchanted. I had no hesitation. I said to me: that is my city. I found a room to rent in Calle delle Testa and then I commenced to be a Venetian”.

That is the idea of Venice that he will maintain for the rest of his life.

Here he starts to attend the Scuola Libera del Nudo courses at the School of Fine Arts; knows young artists equal in age (Saverio Barbaro, Renato Guttuso, Alberto Gianquinto, Tancredi Parmeggiani) and meets many key player of the world of art as Guido Perocco, Giuseppe Mazziarol e Diego Valeri.

He will also meet again with Pietro Zampetti, in Venice as Director of Fine Arts, who organizes a Gambino’ solo exhibit at the Bevilacqua La Masa, finally consecrating him as a “Venetian painter.”

The year 1956 sees the first and only Gambino’s participation to the Biennale.

1957 – 1975

THE ARTISTIC MATURITY: FROM THE CHOICE TO THE CONFIRMATION OF A NEW INTERPRETATION

After his first travel to Spain in 1957 – another love at first sight – Giuseppe Gambino comes back to Venice where he meets Gladys Lloyd Robinson, a rich American collector who buys a great amount of his works that she will expose at the California Palace of the Legion of Honor in San Francisco. The American public commence to appreciate more and more Gambino’s artworks.

In 1959 the artist participates to various exhibition in Europe and to the VII Quadriennale in Rome where he exposes three painting: Composition, Landscape, Landscape.

The “Sette Pittori di Oggi” (Seven Contemporary Painters) exhibit, to which Gambino participate – along with Gianquinto, Borsata, Barbaro, Paolucci, Licata, Magnolato – is organized by Zampetti and Perocco in conjunction with and opposition to the XXX Biennale in Venice, due to the refusal of the latter to admit figurative artworks.

On 1963 Gambino moves to Preganziol (Treviso) in a 16th century barn who Gambino himself will restore, creating a large atelier still intact where he could devote to painting.

He also buys a house in Cordova where, besides Rome, he dwells during the cold months.

It is during these “Roman migrations” that Giuseppe Gambino has the honour to meet Giorgio De Chirico.

1976 – 1997

THE ARTISITC FREEDOM 

In 1976 Gambino debut as costumer and scenographer for the Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari’s “Quattro Rusteghi” – performed at the Verdi Theatre in Padua and at the Treviso’s Municipal Theatre.

Since the 80s, Gambino’s physical condition commence to worsen. This led to first to the reduction and then to the end of his participation in the artistic exhibitions of the time.

Giuseppe Gambino dies in on 7th January in 1997.

1997 – TODAY

BEYOND THE ARTIST

In 2000 the municipality of Preganziol establishes and patronises the “Premio Nazionale di pittura Giuseppe Gambino” (The Giuseppe Gambino Nationale Painting Prize), which is now organised by the Cultural Association C.A.T. in Venice, which reintroduced it in world of art placing it among the most prominent Italian prizes.

On 11th May 2001 was founded the Amici di Giuseppe Gambino Association, in Preganziol.

During the same year, on the 8th December, the municipality of Preganziol, inaugurated the “Giuseppe Gambino Square, Painter (1928-1997)”.