KRYSTYNA SCHEYBE
Art critic and art exhibition’s curator
I’m glad to present Ernesto Pirotta’s exhibition for several reasons. Moving from his historic Studio to the new one really brought new fresh air. His works are more alive and modern, seem renovated even if the themes are the same: nature. They seem inspired by a will and a vehemence that sometimes betray the enthusiasm of the “new beginning”.
Another good reason is that Pirotta is unbelievably able to move with confidence from small painting about the emotions of the “fleeting moment”, to the bigger one created with strict and meditate commitment. At last but not least: this is a comforting “happy Island” between these stormy times. There is the hope that everyone could drow on an optimistic and peaceful message the one that the author want to suggest trough the comprehension of his images.
These images are valleys, lagoons, rivers, country flours and romantic visions. Is it still so? Sure, these were the images he perceive and by this way the artist watches things with his dreaming and poetic eyes. These are impressions delivered to the memories of a world that is always more extraneous, the product of a tender and breezy heart, but also melancholic from the bottom, dominate by the anxiety that generates in the artist the perception of having not enough time to communicate the message. In the quite and familiar atmosphere of his studio, paintings’ amateur enter with trust. They’ll find sincere paint, very spontaneous in the means and in the contents. That small planks you can keep in one’s hand, will surely represent collector’s joy.
Milan, november 2001
RAFFAELA RAVECCA
Opera singer – mezzo-soprano
Ernesto thinks that music and paint are closely correlate. Lyric theatre in particular, entered in his artistic universe and left a clear trail in two beautiful scenographies: “Madam Butterfly” and “Traviata”.
This kind of “trespass”, however totally legitimate, allows to frame a kind of personality completely open to novelty and experiences. Friendship and esteem that bind us, allows me to exalt this exhibition that is the root of fine sensations and engaging in the variety of the themes.
Some impressions of rivers and countries express a a strong and vibrating personality, a young and optimistic look preserved also through the hard proves that life and art pose.
Milan, november 2001
Dott.ssa ALDA MARINI
Psychotherapist
“in our world, always more depersonalized, technical and proposed like “useful”, Pirotta lavishes the natural beauty, the one that using James Hillmann’s words, feeds the soul and conciliate it with the world”…
…”our society based on efficiency, has neglected Aesthetics, relegating it to the unecessary and generating humble people that live in monotonous places dominated by a straight line and grey colours. The straight line kills fantasy and fade intelligence; gray is metals’and livid skys’ colour . A colour we associate oppression and depression. Maybe we can say that tasting one of Pirotta’s painting, help us to find our soul again but also to feed it with images that wake up and attract our sense of beauty, but also the beauty inside of us”…
…”getting nearer the painting, letting vibrate inside the emotion that images and colours, essential part of the artist’s work, provoke in us, we make our hidden contents conscious”…
Milan, november 2006
JEAN SERVATO
Art Dealer and art critic
I knew Ernesto Pirotta in Alto Vergante, at the feet of Mottarone. He was painting birches and mountain glimpse, the one that winked the eye to the Maggiore Lake. I liked his palette, his sliding into the trees in order to have suggestions and backlight, the prompt impact with its reality changing. I noticed he still supported the nineteenth-century’s Lombard-piedmontese painting tradition. His art took inspiration from that romantic-impressionist tradition, the one that many masterpieces inspired. I new afterwards, that in the same place, in Levo, for twenty year, the turinese Giacomo Grosso, master of the great Gino Mazzoli, attempted to paint the same landscape.
Ernesto was by my side during the two exhibitions in Gignese in the august 1980 and in 1981. His works were a success with critics and public. The green spaces, the typical lagoons of Veneto region, the splendor of the woods, the quite of the mountain, the several daytime touches stolen that touch gently life’s skin; all these, frame the appointment that the exhibition of Ernesto Pirotta fixes in the city of Casale in the famous “Sala degli Stucchi” in Lagnosco Palace during Christmas eve 1981.
Casale Monferrato, 13th December 1981
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"Three friends" |
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"Hen with chick"
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"Raising Pheasant" Oil on card 70 X 50 |
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"Still Life"
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"The big fleet under the snow" Oil on card 60 X 50 |
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"Milan – the washerwoman’s alley" Watercolours 50 X 35 |
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"Milan – The fleet in Porta Romana" Oil on card 40 X 30 |
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"Milan the 30’s - San Babila" Oil on card 70 X 50 |
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"Milan - The Darsena" Watercolours 50 X 35 |
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"Venice - San Marco’s square" Oil on card 40 X 30 |
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"Birches" Oil on canvas 60 X 80 |
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"Mountain landscape" Oil on wood 50 X 70 |
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"The cinque terre’s path" Oil on card 40 X 30 |
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"Lago Maggiore" Oil on card 50 X 30 |
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"Liguria’s cliff" Oil on canvas 50 X 35
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"Pond with water lily" Oil on card 40 X 30 |
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"Wood" Oil on card 40 X 30 |
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"Flowering country" Oil on card 50 X 40 |
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"A flower branch" Watercolours 70 X 50
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"Portofino" Oil on canvas 40 X 30 |
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During these years of activity followed many exhibitions. Here a list of the one that occur to memory, in most recent or less epoch.
Vecchia Milano Gallery – Milan
Cova Room - Via Montenapoleone – Milan
Circolo Filologico Milanese - Milan
Ars Italica Gallery - Milan
Fornara Gallery - Arona - Novara
Antiquario Gallery – Vigevano - Pavia
Ariete Gallery - Casale Monferrato
Langosco Palace - Casale Monferrato
Cavalli d’Olivola Palace - Casale Monferrato
Museum “Ombrello e del Parasole” – Gignese - Verbania
Re Art Gallery - Val Vigezzo - Novara
Malesco Art Gallery - Val Vigezzo - Novara
Aicardi Gallery - Celle Ligure - Savona
Casarico Gallery – Abbiategrasso
Erba Secondary School - Como
Giovanni Segantini School - Cavalese -Trento
Ravagnan Gallery – Mercerie -Venezia
Orta Art Gallery - Orta S. Giulio - Novara
Ormond Manor - Sanremo
Lungomare Gallery – Chiavari - Genoa
Carruggio Gallery - Chiavari – Genoa
Kannotole Club - Asiago
International Fair - Frankfurt/ Germany
Domenicani Gallery - Bolzano
Sascha lery - Wien/Austria
Portici Gallery - Tradate - Varese
Porticciolo Gallery - Camogli - Genoa
Garabello Gallery - Biella
August 2010 – Anthological with 130 paintings in the congress all of” MUSEUM OF UMBRELLA” Gignese VB – Maggiore Lake
The not mentioned collective exhibition have as well much relevance. The most important personal exhibition are the one that have took place in the Royal Palace of Rodi, Greece, also reported by local newspapers and television.
A small group of collectors followed with interest in Pirotta’s studio for seventeen years painting, sculpture and graphic art annual exhibitions, in collaboration with many artists’ colleagues
+39 333 2585289 (Ada Pedroli)
Ernesto Pirotta was born in 1940 in Milan and grew up in a family that has always looked at Art with a lot of interest. His father was a notable industrial designer, an opera lover, a good pianist and he was really into litterature. He passed on his same interests to his son. following a depp familiar tradition, Ernesto startd to the engeneering structural design.
As a boy, he has the opportunity to approach to painting, attending the milanese studium of Gottardo Segantini, son of Giovanni Segantini, a famous painter of the nineteenth century, and notable Central European artist himself, who sometimes came back in Milan from Maloja, in Switzerland, where he used to live with his family. For many yeas Ernesto's grandmother lived in the studio-house of the painter and everytime Ernesto visited her, he could see the copies of Giovanni Segantini's paintings and working instruments of his son Gottardo.
Easels, palettes, colours and canvas were part of the furnishing and encouraged Ernesto's interest and his artistic curiosity. Frequent visits by Segantinis put the basis for a friendly relationship with the children and other members of the family. His love for Art didn't grow up in that period, but the fascination for everything that Art standed for was a seed which was meant to sprout many years after. Pirotta didn't look after painting for many years, except for its literary and cultural declinations. His activity kept him completely busy, even for his need to provide for his family, who had also increased. He approached more concretely to Art when, making some drawing of animals for his daughter, he found a deep pleasure and a strong desire of producing something more challenging.
Most of Pirotta's paintings - realized "en plain air" - have been done in those places, that called to mind the paintings of Nineteenth Century artists, who had equally put there their own easels . Painters like Mosè Bianchi, Leonardo Bazzaro, Pompeo Mariani, Eugenio Gignous, Guido Boggiani, Uberto Dell'Orto, Filippo Carcano and many others had walked the same paths, leaving a significant sign of their passage. Pirotta deeply felt this influence and his artistic production flourished copious, becoming more and more rich of those places' images, then showed at the Art Exhibition in the Congress Hall of "Museum of Umbrella" of Gignese. The exhibitions followed one after the other for twenty-seven years.
They've been almost totally managed by Art Gallery Aries of Casale Monferrato and, in the last three years, by himself together with a group of five artists tied to the site. Pirotta followed also lessons of figure and landscape with Master Carlo Righi, who taught in his studium in Milan.
They were two years of very intense work, during which he learned spatule technique, that he experienced for a certain time. He tried also the engraving, guided by the painter and etchinger Paola Mussi and then watercoulour with Alvaro Mairani. Thanks to a deep knowledge of opera, deriving from his family, in 1999 - as a theatre spectator - he got in touch with Emiko Kubota, a Japanese manager and singer: this contact granted him to practise both set design and painting. His activity as a set designer opened a new artistic season for the painter. I didn't know American artists, except for those linked to French Impressionism outside France, like Mary Cassat, Merrit Chase, Childe Hassam and some others. Discovering Robert Wood, a great talented American artist, has been a chance.
Around Seventies, snooping around second hand books and objects in a small market, I found a folder of landscape prints, signed by Robert Wood. They were american views representing the Californian Coast of Carmel, the Rocking Mountains, the Catskill Mountain, the Grand Tetons and other marines of the Lagoon. It was the solemn and attractive appearance that impressed me. The air you could breathe there was the one of a primordial America, that called to mind the English painting of the Victorian Age and the pleasure for the details. There was a light contrast with the way I used to conceive painting, who was deeply influenced by the tradition of French Impressionism and Nineteenth Century Vedutism of Lumbardy and Piemonte. However, I've been impressed by the masterpieces I had in my hands. I negotiated the price, that was pretty expensive, but at the end I've been able to buy about thirty paints for an attractive price. I tried to understand something more about the author, but everything I managed to know was that the collection came from the apartement of a foreigner, that had just been cleared out. I wasn't able to know anything about Robert Wood and in the library I didn't find anything about him neither. About ten years later, I heard in the States that he was a famous artist who, selling all over the world milions of copies of his works, became the most commercialized and collected American painter.
At that time painting was becoming my second job and those printings have been the decisive step: I studied and looked at them with a lot of interest and they have been very important for my artistic growth. Later on, an extremely curious event happened to me: I found in a shop of Fine Arts a booklet written by Wood himself, telling about painting landscapes. Considering the high quality of that issue I decided to choose it for the alumns of my painting courses. Sometimes I still suggest it, considering it always up-to-date and useful.
I didn’t know American artists, except for the ones connected to French Impressionism outside France, like Mary Cassat, Merrit Chase, Childe Hassam and some others. It was accidental to know Robert Wood, a very talented American artist.
Around Seventies, snooping around second hand books and objects in a small market, I found a folder of landscape prints, signed by Robert Wood. They were american views representing the Californian Coast of Carmel, the Rocking Mountains, the Catskill Mountain, the Grand Tetons and other marines of the Lagoon. It was the solemn and attractive appearance that impressed me.
The air you could breathe there was the one of a primordial America, that called to mind the English painting of the Victorian Age and the pleasure for the details. There was a light contrast with the way I used to conceive painting, who was deeply influenced by the tradition of French Impressionism and Nineteenth Century Vedutism of Lumbardy and Piemonte. However, I've been impressed by the masterpieces I had in my hands.
I negotiated the price, that was pretty expensive, but at the end I've been able to buy about thirty paints for an attractive price. I tried to understand something more about the author, but everything I managed to know was that the collection came from the apartement of a foreigner, that had just been cleared out. I wasn't able to know anything about Robert Wood and in the library I didn't find anything about him neither. About ten years later, I heard in the States that he was a famous artist who, selling all over the world milions of copies of his works, became the most commercialized and collected American painter.
At that time painting was becoming my second job and those printings have been the decisive step: I studied and looked at them with a lot of interest and they have been very important for my artistic growth. Later on, an extremely curious event happened to me: I found in a shop of Fine Arts a booklet written by Wood himself, telling about painting landscapes. Considering the high quality of that issue I decided to choose it for the alumns of my painting courses. Sometimes I still suggest it, considering it always up-to-date and useful.
The japanese soprano Emiko Kubota, more than singing in his frequent shows, as director, he produced the set design of the works he set up and also looked after the preparation of the artists. After having examined Ernesto Pirotta’s works, he offered the possibility to extend his artistic field charging him to do the set design of “Madama Butterfly”.
It was really a hard challenge, but in only three months it was finished and represented. The originality of the work was that it was composed by several painted modular panels of 2x1 m able to put side by side in lenght and hight.
To Madama Butterfly followed “Traviata” and the same bearing structure, conveniently covered by painted veils, was used to represent the internal and external environment that the work requie. Pirotta faced with excitement that new kind of work, knew many italian and foreign opera singers he became friend and that let him to enter in that artistic world that always wished to attend.
Later other two set design like backcloth for the “operetta theatre”: “The dragon-flies dance” and “The dorbells’country”. After this interesting experience, Pirotta returned to painting.
During the forty years painting of Ernesto Pirotta, the themes examined have explored almost every pattern of topics. Apart from the woodland and lake landscapes near the Maggiore lake, it is possible to admire his Liguria's seascapes, a site he often hangs around with: the Cinque Terre, the costal area of Portofino and Tigullio, which represent a considerable part of his production.
The trasparency of the water with reflections and the extraordinary coloring they assume, have always been interesting cue for the artist.
As many colour, maybe much more intense and bright, he found in Greece at Rodi island, where he came back several times to paint but also to exspose his works at the Royal Palace of Rodi city.
Newspapers and magazines have so long reported his art and his expositions, decreeting the success.
Between the themes more beloved by Ernesto Pirotta, it is possible to find the lagoon of Venezia and the evocative atmosphere of his "old Milan" which paints and investigates from different points of view, thanks also to the grat collection of photos gathered during the years.
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Impossible to forget, the evocative still life painting and all the canvas dedicated to the faunistic/fauna world: wild animals in their natural habitat and hunting dogs in their activities, these are only few examples. As regards his works on commission, it is important to underline his 25 wonderful landscapes of Costa Azzurra.
