Umberto Spera - Tuna Fishing

Social themes in art began to gain prominence in the mid-19th century, coinciding with the spread of social questions throughout European societies. The work of painters such as Millet and Daumier, for example, favored subjects related to life in the fields, factory work, or strikes. In Italy, among the first painters to engage deeply with social themes were Pellizza da Volpedo and, in the contemporary era, Renato Guttuso. Umberto Spera also followed this trend, and his favorite subjects were fishermen and farmers, depicted through his original and personal artistic language, which combines contemporaneity with an authentic and sincere description of a typical popular reality.

Umberto Spera's artistic production fits perfectly into a pictorial movement that combines realist themes with a predominantly expressionist language. Indeed, if the subject matter is the world of work and the working classes, the style calls for a synthetic interpretation of reality. In a two-dimensional space, everything is simplified to transfigure reality in an expressive and symbolic sense. The process of abstraction is thus conducted by the painter to extract the essence from sensory data. In particular, figures are simplified with a deliberately rough stroke that sketches them in a decidedly expressive manner. The application of color completes this process of synthesis with energetic brushstrokes and a color dense with pictorial substance. So much so that the pictorial layer also develops in relief, playing with the third dimension, with an overall grandeur capable of embellishing an entire wall, even a large one. The palette focuses on strong contrasts.

Umberto Spera was born in Eboli in 1940 and lives in Sassari. His paintings are inspired by a bygone era, by traditional professions now on the verge of extinction, such as those of fishing and housewives. He has participated in numerous competitions, including the First City of Solbiate Competition (gold medal in 1971) and the VII National Art Exhibition of the City of Parma (silver medal in 1977). He was mentioned in the "Italian Art of the 20th Century" (Florence), published by Comanducci-Edizioni d'Arte. His works are held in public and private collections both in Italy and abroad.

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