(Bagheria/Palermo 1912–1987 Rome)
Muro repubblicano, 1977, signed, signed and dated on the reverse, oil on canvas, 100 x 110 cm

Provenance:
Marlborough Fine Art ltd., London
European Private Collection

Exhibited:
Stockholm, Renato Guttuso: Paintings 1934–1977, Moderna Museet, 15 April – 28 May 1978, exh. cat., no. 34 (label on the reverse)
London, Renato Guttuso. Recent Paintings, Watercolors and Drawings, Marlborough Gallery, 1 – 24 March 1979, exh. cat. no. 18 with ill.
La Spezia, Maestri del XX secolo, Galleria Menhir, October 1981 Venice, Guttuso: Opere dal 1931 al 1981, Palazzo Grassi, 4 April – 20 June 1982, exh. cat. p. 205, no. 120, with ill.

Literature:
Il Secolo XIX, Genoa, 22 October 1981 with ill.
E. Crispolti (ed.), Catalogo Ragionato Generale dei Dipinti di Renato Guttuso, vol. IV, Mondadori & Associati, Milan 1989, p. 241, no. 77/18 with ill.

We know from Hugo’s own account that Courbet once told him: 'I have made a real wall, absolutely real. In making it, I tormented myself as much as Homer could have in describing Achilles' shield and, on my word of honour, my wall is worth his shield, which is greatly lacking'. Only the narcissism of this great man could allow such a comparison, especially as I don’t doubt that he was right. Of course I don't want to repeat comparisons now, but just to say that, standing in front of Guttuso's Republican Wall or some of his grandiose fragments of Roman aqueducts, I was reminded of Courbet's torment. Because in these walls that Guttuso has so recently been painting I find not only new torment, new strength, but the spirit of a reality so grounded, powerful and almost aggressive, that they become a paradigm, a signal, a symbol of his entire last pictorial phase; or at least a fundamental part of it.

Roberto Tassi, Presentation of the Guttuso exhibition at the Fondazione Achille Marazza, Borgomanero, September 1979