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Painter and Sculptor - artist of 20th-century Italy
1933 - the Artist paints "en plein air"
1933 - the Artist paints "en plein air"
1994 - The Last Exhibition
1994 - The Last Exhibition
ER Cultural Heritage of Emilia Romagna
Some works are located at the Art Gallery of the Municipality of Cesena
Commented works
La Bruna - 1960
charcoal on cardboard 40x30
The artist was able to leave us very important signs of his human relationship, in works like this, which is a remarkable portrait of great strength.
Prof. Vittorio Sgarbi
Here too, although some physiognomic elements return to identify the subject, the sense of introspection always prevails in the complex brushstroke, in the accentuated synthesis, in the insistence on monochromy.
A strong feeling pervades this face that avoids the gaze, as if it did not want to show inner suffering.
Exhibited in a traveling exhibition with "Contemporary Art Grand Tour" 2025-26
La Bruna 80 - 1980
mixed media on plastic 30x24
"Gattavecchia lived through the wars and the profound crises that shook the twentieth century, a century in which the individualism of artists reached its peak.
His works speak of violence, fear, loneliness, incommunicability, marginalization.
Expressionist in the style of Munch, the woman emerges from the darkness, marked by diaphanous light and with a resigned gaze into the void: yet those full red lips do not hide her beauty and passion.”
Prof. Vittorio Sgarbi
The painting was exhibited at FLORENCE PALAZZO XIMENENS PANCIATICHI on the occasion of the event "Unici" curated by the art critic and historian Leonarda Zappulla.The art exhibition was set up on the occasion of the presentation of the Artists’ Yearbook ’23, an art volume published by Sandro Serradifalco and distributed by Mondadori, in the presence of Vittorio Sgarbi.
Exhibited in the traveling exhibition "Contemporary Art Grand Tour" 2025-26
Study of Bodies II - 1977
mixed media on plastic 62x42
The Artist dedicated his entire life to both painting and sculpture.
Often his paintings are transformed into sculptures and are influenced by the representative strength of sculpture, which has no color but all the chromatic variations from white to black.
Included in the Atlas of Contemporary Art ed. 2021 DeAgostini Ed.
Exhibited in the traveling exhibition "Contemporary Art Grand Tour" 2025-26
Fragmentation - 1968
mixed media on cardboard 33x45
In a grey world where the clouds look like stones, a vibrant body is depicted with a black cloak in place of the head.
The head, although detached from the body, appears dreamy and relaxed.
The surrealism of this work takes us into a dreamlike dimension where every part of us can be fragmented and live a life of its own.
Body and mind often travel on two distinct, sometimes irreconcilable, planes.
Exhibited in traveling exhibition "Contemporary Art Grand Tour" 2025-26
The White Tree - 1992
mixed media on fabric 75x95
The theme of ecology and the environment often recurs in Gattavecchia's art.
Already in 1971, he denounced the problem of waste abandoned in open-air dumps in the work "Modern Times I".
But in this 1992 painting entitled "The White Tree" he goes further.
He portrays a desolate landscape without life or people, only a slender, bare white tree. It seems the result of an apocalyptic event that has swept everything away and left only improbable remnants of life.
Nature is devastated, only rocks without a breath of life remain.
But that white tree represents hope, a slender thread of existence from which to start again and be reborn.
The artist's message, starting from a pessimistic vision, leads us to reflect on our behaviors, which could still be corrected and heal our future.
On video display at the "Contemporary Art Grand Tour" 2025-26
Fragments VI - 1979
mixed media on plastic 65x48
In 1979 Gattavecchia produced a series of 6 paintings entitled “Fragments”.
These are coherent works that share a common idea, that of the decomposition of the perception of contents.
The executions and chromatic variations make them similar but never the same.
Bright colors dominate, even though the effect of black as a background is powerful; some parts are cut and re-glued with the collage technique, through a process of research and symbolic reconstruction.
Gattavecchia, in each of his works, tries to identify the intimate essence of the person, nothing is left to chance, the message is profound.
We are a mix of emotions, impressions, turmoil, sensations.
All this completes our self, in an indefinite whole that contains our entire inner life, the intimate essence of the human being.
On video display at the "Contemporary Art Grand Tour" 2025-26
Indifference - 1979
mixed media on cardboard 24x43
"Five male faces made using only brown colors stand out against a monochromatic surface. Four are closer and only one, almost like a background figure, is shown in profile, with mouth slightly open.
The choice to depict half-closed eyes is striking, with the explicit intention of not creating empathy, nor suggesting a relationship with the external viewer of the canvas.
The lack of communication and indifference also exists among the five characters: they are close, but each is closed in on himself, in his own mute selfishness.
Presented with extreme formal stylization and typified as if they were masks, these faces become symbols of the alienation and isolation that grips contemporary society."
Exhibited at the Rome Triennale 2021
Introspection - 1984
tempera on plastic 65x45
In the work "Introspection" from 1984, Gattavecchia explores the theme of inner analysis, carried out through meditation and the search for self-awareness.
In the painting, the female subject is depicted sitting on her legs, relaxed, almost in a prayerful attitude.
It is a state of mental calm that allows one to listen to one's inner voice, to recognize thoughts, emotions, and needs.
Behind her appears a glow that illuminates her, highlighting the moment of understanding her own emotions, while in front of her stands a figure representing her most intimate inner part, facing a black horizon that she has yet to confront.
The search for answers is part of everyone's experience and is a distressing situation that we have all lived through.
The artist manages to convey the intimacy and solitude of such a particular and profound moment.
Exhibited at ROME VATICAN GALLERY from 24 to 28 June 2024
Exhibited at Medina Rome 2020 (event: Premio della Lupa)
On video display at the "Contemporary Art Grand Tour" 2025-26
Thoughts II - 1948
tempera on cardboard 46x32
Seven mask-like faces are depicted, clinging to each other, suspended in time. No mouths are visible, only black eyes, making them look like skulls.
The red color that "stains" them reminds us of the horrors of war.
It was 1948 and the past sufferings were still vivid and painful.
The Artist expresses his profound anguish of existence.
The thoughts crowding the mind are like lifeless heads, floating in a surreal dimension that is nothing but pure subconscious.
Exhibited at ARTEXPO NEW YORK 2024
Included in the Atlas of Contemporary Art ed. 2021 DeAgostini
The Salt Pans of Cervia - 1976
mixed technique on cardboard 65x70
"The Salt Pans of Cervia" is a work with a dark and mysterious atmosphere, in which the landscape horizon almost dissolves into evanescence.
Through brushstrokes charged with emotion, the artist expressed the ugliness of the vision he has of the world as such, marked by the profound changes brought about in his era by wars, consumerism, and the loss of individuality.
The salt pans, traditionally a symbol of prosperity, here become a metaphor for the unstoppable transformations afflicting a society not yet ready for change.
EXHIBITED IN PALERMO Experience space from April 20 to 27, 2024
White vases - 1990
mixed media on canvas 76x46
For the Artist, bottles represented people.
He saw them as containers, sometimes white, sometimes black, but always impenetrable, mysterious, suspended in time and space.
Like characters who are close, but do not communicate, each closed in their own world.
Isolation and loneliness were dominant themes in Gattavecchia's art.
He was born in a small town, Cesena, which at that time had only a few thousand inhabitants. Life was simple, more outward-looking, and took place in close contact with others.
Then came the great change after the second world war.
Everything became fast, chaotic.
The whirlwind swept up everything and everyone, there was no longer time to talk, to pleasantly linger with friends, to nurture human relationships.
Suddenly you know loneliness, even in the midst of others.
Exhibited at Venice Pavilion Europe 2019
Nocturne - 1961
charcoal on paper 22x40
The work depicts a landscape of his beloved city, Cesena.
Here, the investigation of nature disappears to make room for the expression of an existence, for a deeply spiritual image in the profile of the town standing out against muted glows.
Modern Times II - 1971
mixed media on plastic 45x60
In 1971 the artist had already sensed where we would end up with environmental degradation.
Here an open landfill is depicted, with objects of all kinds. There is nothing else, only garbage.
Yet the painting appears pleasant, almost beautiful.
Even in the harshness of what is represented, Gattavecchia manages to appear poetic.
The clock of time is there to remind us that we must do something before it is too late.
On video display at "Contemporary Art Grand Tour" 2025-26
The Walk - 1987
tempera on plastic 80x54
Two distinct levels, representing the division of social classes. At the top, slender figures, wrapped in light, walk elegantly, upright. Below, awkward bodies move in a dark gallery. There is no possibility of improving one's status, the dividing line is sharp and has no openings. The artist was very sensitive to social issues and inequalities.
Exhibited IN ROME VATICAN GALLERY 2024
Exhibited at the ROME TRIENNALE 2023 - MUSEUMS OF S. SALVATORE IN LAURO
Exhibited AT THE FIRST EDITION ART PRIZE PALLAVICINI IN BOLOGNA 2022
"The Walk" achieves a psychological restlessness, a mysterious unease expressed with scant means in the pictorial field divided by a sharp split.
In the bichromatic composition in the Scanavino style, elongated and slender figures with Giacometti-like bodies walk at a calm pace. A graceful atmospheric brightness envelops them and, like a wounded mind, is then tinged with a deep black.
Narrative beauty advances despite the clear division of planes: the white hues gradually return, accumulate over new details, and develop a suffocating mood.
Desperate propagation of the dark fog, a shroud extends; black and white have lost their silhouette, the sharp lines slip away fleetingly. Dense and pasty brushstrokes paint static bodies in a vague mist.
The renegades are born. Like achromatic nightmares, they move massive and inelegant in the unequal society.
Raw representation of the disillusionment of human bonds, they are detached from the perfection of the Empyrean, reaching the soot of the Inferno. From the bright screen placed at the top, the commanders decide the fates, the truths, the common rights.
Stuck in another graceless night where darkness has never been so bright, the obedient fall from immeasurable heights, withdraw, only a dark road ahead with shining souls to show the way. Stuck in the silent struggle that consumes everything, they forget that they themselves are their own darkness and their own light.
from "The Poetics of Differences" in search of a new Humanism
edited by Stefania Pieralice
V Triennial Exhibition of Visual Arts in Rome - ed. 2023
Winter Landscape I - 1991
mixed media on canvas 75x95
When the Artist created this work, he was 84 years old and already ill.
He senses his imminent end and paints landscapes without colors, without presences, enveloped only by the grayness and cold of winter.
For the Artist, the theme of abandonment becomes more heartrending and intense!
Together - 1987
mixed media on plastic 70x50
This painting addresses the theme of homosexuality.
In those years, homosexuality was still seen as a deviance or illness, so it had to be hidden and experienced exclusively in a private place.
In the painting, the two lovers are in an enclosed space where they can embrace freely.
Cesena - FC - Italy
Painter and Sculptor