Last Supper, 1945

Renzo Vespignani  

Renzo Vespignani (Rome, 1924 - 2001) was a painter, printmaker and illustrator. Among the others, he illustrated the works of Boccaccio and Kafka. In 1956, he founded the magazine "Città Aperta" ("City Opened") and, in 1963 he co-founded the neorealism groupt "Il Pro e il Contro". He also contributed to realize illustrations for political and literary journals. He also participated in the Venice Biennale four times. A 1985 exhibition at the French Academy examined the rapport between Vespignani's work and that of Pier Paolo Pasolini.

Vespignani began painting during the Nazi occupation, hidden by the engraver Lino Bianchi Barriviera, his first teacher. Other important references, which influenced his artistic beginnings, were Alberto Ziveri and Luigi Bartolini while, especially in his early paintings, the influence of expressionists like George Grosz and Otto Dix seems evident. In 1945, he exhibited his first solo show and began to collaborate in various political-literary magazines. His relationship with literature was very close. Vespignani illustrates Boccaccio's Decameron, poems and prose by Leopardi, Majakowskij's Complete Works, Eliot's Four Quartets, Kafka's Tales, Belli's Sonnets, Door Poems, Villon's Testament and Alleg's Question. In 1999 he was elected President of the National Academy of San Luca and appointed Grand Officer of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic.