Giulio Turcato was an Italian artist and sculptor, one the main figures of Italian informal abstractionism. He was one of the signatories of “Manifesto Nuova Secessione Artistica Italiana” in 1946. Additionally, he was a founding member of the Marxist-leaning abstract art group “Forma 1” in 1947, together with Ugo Attardi, Pietro Consagra, Piero Dorazio, Mino Guerrini, Achille Perilli and Antonio Sanfilippo. Significantly, in 1958, Venice Biennale dedicated a hall exclusively to his works.

Early Life

Giulio Turcato was born in Mantua. In the early 1930s, he studied at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Venezia. Hoewever, in 1937 the artist moved to Milan and found a job in the architect office of Giovanni Muzio. Also, he partly worked and lived in Palermo during that period. Shrotly soon, in 1942, he showed his first work (a Maternity) at the Venice Biennale.

One year after, Turcato arrived to Rome. There he frequented the Osteria Fratelli Menghi, which was a famous meeting place for painters, screenwriters, writers and poets between the 40s and 70s. In Rome, together with Emilio Vedova and Toti Scialoja, he exhibited at the Galleria dello Zodiaco and at the Quadriennale di Roma. Although the painter planned to settle permanently in Rome after the war, in 1946 he traveled to Paris in order to study the art of Kandinsky and Picasso.

In 1949, at a show at the Secolo, Turcato declared rejection of the dogmatic thesis of politically and socially engagement of the art. He refused to join the “socialist realism” movement or to fully accept the rules of formalist abstraction. He believed, that the second way would lead to academism. 

Meanwhile,

his unique style of abstactionism developed. Turcato experimented with the use of colors. Tints looked like as slowly moving around the painitngs. Moreover, he used materials such as sand on the monochrome. He used as well foam rubber, so that fascinating “lunar surfaces” appear.

Besides,

the artist participated in the Italian Resistance movement.

You can find a selection of his artwork in Kings Gallery.

Kings Gallery is a leading fine art gallery established in Jerusalem in 1995 that strives to collect and sell the highest quality historic and contemporary Israeli and International art.