Giancarlo Vitali (1929-2018): "the Woman With The Cat"; Signed Lithograph, Numbered 11/40

Giancarlo VITALI (1929-2018): "The woman with the cat"; Lithograph signed lower right, Numbered 11/40; Sheet: 56x44.5 cm Subject: 39.5x29.8 cm Giancarlo Vitali, born November 29, 1929 in Bellano and died July 25, 2018 in the same city, is a contemporary Italian painter and engraver. Biography Giancarlo Vitali was born on November 29, 1929 in Bellano1, on Lake Como, to a family of fishermen. He began painting at the age of fifteen, after working at the Institute of Graphic Arts in Bergamo2. In 1947, he exhibited his first works at the Angelicum in Milan, on the occasion of the biennial exhibition of sacred art. In 1949, he showed two of his works in the biennial exhibition: Visitazione and Cena in Emmaus, which received enthusiastic appreciation from Carlo Carrà. Vitali receives a membership card from the Brera Academy in Milan, but finding himself in a very difficult economic situation, he is forced to reject it. In 1981, his son Velasco Vitali, also a painter, encouraged Giancarlo to work as an engraver. In 1983, the reproduction of one of his paintings ended up in the hands of Giovanni Testori, who was so impressed that he wanted to meet him2. The painting represents a quartered rabbit. The meeting creates a deep and solid relationship, based on mutual esteem and admiration, which subsequently becomes a long, deeply rooted friendship. In 1984, Testori wrote an article about Vitai's work in the third page of Corriere della Sera and organized his first solo exhibition at the Compagnia del Disegno in Milan. Later, Vitali had several exhibitions in public and private institutions and he published a series of catalogs and portfolios of engravings. In the late 1980s, he created numerous works of public art, including Portraits of Benefactors at the Ospedale Maggiore in Milan, commissioned by the Ca' Granda Foundation. Giancarlo Vitali died on July 25, 2018 at the age of eighty-eight3,2, in his house facing Lake Como, in Bellano, where he was born and where he chose to live4. The funeral took place on the 27th in Bellano in the church of San Nazaro and Celso4. He leaves his wife Germana and his children Velasco, Sara and Paola4. Subjects His subjects are the men and women of his village: the pharmacist, the priest, a woman who wants to pluck a chicken. Powerful portraits of a humble, silent humanity, often forgotten, but extraordinarily alive and delivered to a suspended time thanks to such noble painting, which Giovanni Testori defines as “material splendor”3