Tonino Gottarelli was born in Imola in 1920. After studying at the high school he graduated in philosophy and published his first novel l’Ideale in 1942. Later, as well as continuing to write novels, he went into painting and held his first personal exhibition in Faenza in 1960. From then on exhibitions and publications alternated frequently.
Poetry, painting, words and colour – these for Gottarelli were the instruments which reveal the natural and human worlds because everything “grows out of language and nothing is real before it is named, before the name probably nothing existed at all”.
Paintings made up of very delicate graphic notes and skilled colour orchestration move from observing nature, filling up our pockets with “leaves and memories” which enables us to reach the very essence of things. Gottarelli died in Imola on the 20th of February 2007.
Last Updated: 01/08/2020