Size: 19 x 31 inches
Notes: Poster, Unlined
Artist: Cremonini, Walter (after)
At the age of fourteen, he won a competition for young artists with
a bas-relief in which we can already recognize the characteristics
of elegance and craftsmanship typical of his work. Later, a student yet, he won the National Sculpture Award for
youngsters between eighteen and twenty-eight years old: this was a
great day for the young sculptor, but the war destroyed his dreams:
he was called to arms, but, as he refused to fight alongside the
Nazi Army, he was sentenced to deportation. After an incredible
escape from a moving train, he was sentenced to death. He saved his
life hiding for about a year in a small apartment, almost a prison,
until April 25, 1945.
He had seen many friends die, he had risked himself to die for the
ambition and the folly of a few. The nightmare of this persecution,
his hatred for the abuses of power, his desire for freedom will
always be in his work. After the war he started working for various prestigious publishers,
such as Fratelli Fabbri, Carroccio, Giuseppe Rizzi and others,
specialized in books for children. Meanwhile, he again started mingling with the artistic world of
Milan.
In his beautiful studio in Piazzale Istria, on the fourth floor,
where the wide windows swept over the trees of the square, giving a
breath of green and an illusory contact with nature, he worked with
alacrity, dedicating himself to paintings and etchings.
Although he had many friends among artists, songwriters, actors, and
poets, he worked alone, closed in his world with his extraordinary
characters: the overpowering Kings, Generals, devious Harlequins,
scarecrows, monuments to useless monstrous beings inflated from
nothing
Refined etcher, he founded with some friends the “Centro
dell'Incisione Alzaia Naviglio Grande“.The art of etching adapts
well to the magic of his lines, clean and elegant, impossible to
imitate.
In those years Cremonini had many exhibitions in major galleries in
Milan, as the “Permanente“; he was invited to Graz (the Styrian
Festival), Vienna, Berlin and Geneva. He also was invited to the
International Exhibition of Graphic Arts in Ljubljana and received
several awards.
In the mid-80s, he lived a brief parenthesis in Rome, with his
friend, the sculptor Fontanella, and was finally able to dedicate
himself to sculpture, attending the Anselmi's foundry. He went back
home with a refrigerated box (it was summer) containing the waxes
for the “Faun victorious” and the “Passage of a mask”, which became
bronze statues during a subsequent trip to Rome, and of which only
one copy exists.
A few years after he created the “Cavallo di Troia“ (The Trojan
Horse) in bronze and silver. In the year 2003, his friend and
collector Gerosa dedicated for this sculpture, (with many drawings
and etchings), an exhibition in the halls of the ancient Palais
Beauharnais in the town of Pusiano.
the artistic world with its compromises, ended up by tiring the free
temperament of Cremonini. Gradually he withdrew from such an
environment. He left Milan and moved to Canzo, in Brianza.
He reorganized his studio in an ancient aristocratic house, he
installed his trusty press, he rearranged his cultured library.
In those years cultural opportunities lead to his discovery of
Sicily, land of mystery that captivated him with its ambiguity and
its enormous culture. The owner of the touristic village of
Kartibubbo, Capo Granitolo, was a very sensitive patron, promoter of
an interesting cultural initiative for the Italian artists. For this
village he painted a large fresco.
For his town as well, in the green Brianza, he produces some
frescoes that remain as witness of his openness and capability to be
popular giving up useless intellectualism, such as the “Miracle of
the sleeping carter” in a small chapel on the Segrino Lake, or the
“St. Miro's miracle of the rain” in Canzo, on Mornerino Street.
He also participated to many country fairs, including a very
beautiful one in Florence, where ancient crafts were presented. With
artisans friends from Brianza he gave a public demonstration of his
manual press, explaining how it worked.
Thanks to a passionate young student of his works, who chose for her
thesis "Cremonini incisore" (Cremonini the etcher), he had to make
order in the history of his work. and this has been a great help to
the unfulfilled effort to reconstruct his memory as a man and as an
artist.
His is a never ending story that never ceases to surprise us with
continuous discoveries of extraordinary drawings, pondered writings,
serene and deep thoughts among his papers.
I will end with what a friend and critic Vigorelli wrote several
years ago: “This sweet, generous, unique artist has discovered a
special secret: that of being loved" (Source : waltercremonini.it)