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Luigi Zuccheri

Luigi Zuccheri (b. 1904, Gemona del Friuli; d. 1974, Venice) channeled the painting traditions of the Veneto and Friuli regions into still lifes, landscapes, portraits, and animal scenes that addressed the dominant presence of nature in rural Italian life. Initially trained in oil by Venetian artists Alessandro Milesi and Umberto Martina, Zuccheri began around 1940 to work with tempera, a medium associated with the Italian Old Masters, making his own pigments from stones collected from local riverbanks. In the aftermath of World War II, the artist, who was a fugitive during the violent two-year Nazi occupation of Northern Italy, began to paint humans as dwarfed by the flora and fauna native to their environment. His mature paintings depict landscapes with foregrounds occupied by anachronistically large birds, frogs, insects, marmots, rabbits, and other creatures in a characteristically subdued, earth-toned palette. Like his friend Giorgio de Chirico, with whom he shared the secrets of tempera painting, and the other Italian Metaphysical painters, Zuccheri’s theatrical compositions estrange the everyday through shifts in scale. One of the twentieth century’s great animaliers, the artist toed the line of the surreal while remaining devoted to naturalistically capturing the wonders of his region. 

Zuccheri was well-known and widely exhibited in Italy during his lifetime, including at the 1950 Venice Biennale. Posthumous solo exhibitions have been held at Karma, Los Angeles and New York (2024); STANDARD (OSLO) (2023), and in Italy at MMXX, Milan (2020); Museo Civico d’Arte, Pordenone (2014); Musei Civici di Treviso,  (2007); Museo di Montefalco,  (1982); and Galleria del Girasole, Udine (1975).

Luigi Zuccheri, Venice, 1949. Photograph by Graziano Arici. © Archivio Arici

Luigi Zuccheri, Venice, 1949. Photograph by Graziano Arici. © Archivio Arici

Born 1904, Gemona del Friuli

Died 1974, Venice

Solo Exhibitions

2024

Karma, New York

Karma, Los Angeles

2023

Standard Oslo, Luigi Zuccheri

2020

MMXX, Milan, Luigi Zuccheri

2014

Museo Civico d’Arte, Pordenone, Italy, Saint Francis and Saint Catherine in the Art of Luigi Zuccheri

2007

Musei Civici Treviso, Treviso, Italy,  Zuccheri In Treviso: Painting Exhibition

1982

Museo di Montefalco, Montefalco, Italy,  Luigi Zuccheri (1904-1974): Comune di Pordenone Retrospective Exhibition

GROUP EXHIBITIONS

2024

70 Main Street, Thomaston, Maine, A Particular Kind of Heaven

2023

Fondation Vincent van Gogh in Arles, Nature humaine – Humaine Nature

2022

Fondation Vincent Van Gogh Arles, Arles, France, Humane Nature

1973

Palace Doria, Genoa, Graphics Collective 

1970

Palace Reale, Milan, Quarta Mostra Italiana del Dolore Innocente

1971

V National Exhibition, Arezzo, Italy, “Italia Bianco e Nero

IV International, Camaiore, Italy Ai Frati

International Figurative Arts Exhibition, Rome, Free World 

1969

Vittorio Veneto, Italy, Homage Exhibition of Italian Art to the City of Vittorio Veneto

1968

II National Exhibition, Arezzo, Italy, “Italia Bianco e Nero

International Graphic Art Exhibition, Ancona, Italy 

National Biennial of Contemporary Art, Caorle, Italy

1967

XXV National Art Biennial, Milan, Society of Fine Arts and Permanent Exhibition 

1965

Museo della Permanente, Milan

1964

Biennial, Trento, Italy, Exhibition of Venetian Artists

1963-1964

St. Mark’s Square Museum, Venice

1961

St. Mark’s Square Museum, Venice, Venetian Artists and Writers

Church of San Vidal, Venice, Venetian Painters

1959

XIII Triveneta Art Biennial, Padua

1951

IX Triveneta Art Biennial, Padua

1950

XXV Venice Biennale, Venice

1949

Palazzo dell’Arengario, Milan, National Exhibition: Natale dell’arte

AWARDS

1952

Scuola di Burano Award, Venice

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