Antonio Zancanaro

Antonio "Tono" Zancanaro (8 April 1906 – 3 June 1985), was an Italian artist best known for his underground, satirical caricatures of dictator Benito Mussolini from 1937 until 1945. Following the end of World War II, he was a member of the Fronte Nuovo delle Arti, an Italian art movement intended to replace the Novecento Italiano of the ousted fascist regime. Many of his notable works focus on social realism, depicting women rice laborers in Roncoferraro, the Polesine flood of 1951, and the carusi, child labourers in Sicilian sulfur mines.

As a visual artist, Zancanaro's work was characterized by different styles incorporating realism, surrealism, and political satire. He was prolific in his output and explored the graphic arts, engravings, sculptures, ceramics, glass art, mosaics, and lithographs in a career spanning 54 years. He won several awards for his work, including first prize for engraving at the 26th Venice Biennale in 1952. In the 1970s, he began working as a scenographer for the opera alongside his nephew Sylvano Bussotti. Since Zancanaro's death in 1985, his work continues to generate interest and ongoing exhibitions, with at least one museum bearing his name and several more hosting his permanent collections.

Life Antonio Zancanaro was born to parents Colomba Zampiron and Natale Zancanaro on 8 April 1906, in Padua, Veneto, Italy. After graduating from high school, he began taking night classes for artists, but left in 1926 for Turin to serve in the armed services. While living in Florence in the late 1920s, he visited the Uffizi and became a fan of Renaissance art, particularly the work of Botticelli. Rosai depicted the struggles of the less fortunate and overlooked in society, and this attracted Zancanaro in his own artistic pursuits. Zancanaro would later recall that Rosai gave him "the first and only fundamental lesson on the nature of art." Zancanaro was drafted into the military in 1938 and was a member of the Communist Party by 1942,

Gibbo cycle In 1937, Zancanaro had his first solo exhibition. At this time, he began a series of sketches depicting a figure he would call "Il Gibbo", an anti-fascist political satire of Mussolini. Zancanaro continued the cycle of works until 1945, with the period between 1941 and 1943 his most productive. As the Gibbo, Mussolini's appearance was easy for Zancanaro to satirize as he had a pronounced jaw and shaved head. He gave the fascist leader grotesque physical deformations to symbolize the "moral monstrosity" of the Italian regime. British cultural historian Stephen Gundle notes that Gibbo was a half-human and half-animal fantasy character inspired by several different sources. At least four are known: the character of Gypo from the John Ford film The Informer (1935); that of the lesser ape known as the Gibbon; a large wrestler known as "The Angel" who Zancanaro saw performing in a circus in Bolzano; and finally, Zancanaro 's own hospital stay during a health scare from 1942 to 1943. and began to form an image of the proto-Gibbo in his mind. One piece in the Gibbo cycle, Gibbo I il Grande a’ la spada dell’Islam (1944), satirizes Mussolini's March 1937 propaganda photo op at the gates of Tripoli, where Mussolini met with Muslim Arab dignitaries, who gave him an honorary sword symbolizing Mussolini as the "protector of Islam". The drawings began to be passed around in the anti-fascist underground, The cycle is generally described as anticlerical. After the war, Zancanaro produced different types of works in various genres and traveled around Europe, particularly in Paris and Eastern Europe. He produced works of social realism in the 1950s, documenting women workers in the rice fields in northern Italy's Po Valley using photos and sketches he completed in the field in Roncoferraro in the 1950s (Mondine di Roncoferraro, 1953). Fellow artist Ernesto Treccani (1920–2009) wrote about his experience with Zancanaro during their visits to the rice fields where they produced their work and the inspiration and sense of camaraderie they felt with the rice workers who worked laboriously in the flooded fields up to their knees during the harvest. Zancanaro also documented the Polesine floods of 1951 in his work.

In the 1950s, Zancanaro began experimenting with ceramics. His developing interest in the pottery of ancient Greece and its painting techniques led him to focus on that medium. In Padua, he constructed a kiln in his studio, resulting in the production of vases and plates. He also created sculptures made from terracotta. In the early 1960s, his sculptures were exhibited at L'Obelisco gallery in Rome. In the 1970s, Zancanaro taught engraving at the Academy of Fine Arts in Ravenna, Italy (1970-1977). Zancanaro received credit for many productions, including Niccolò Piccinni's La buona figliuola at the Teatro dell'Opera di Roma in 1981. In May 1985, Zancanaro experienced hemiparesis and became paralyzed on the right side of his body. He was admitted to hospital and died in Padua on June 3, 1985.

Illustrations Satyricon (Gaius Petronius) Bertoldo e Bertoldino (Giulio Cesare Croce) War with the Newts (Karel Čapek) Divine Comedy (Dante Alighieri)

Set design La buona figliuola. Politeama, Palermo. I due Foscari. Fenice, Venice. L'incoronazione di Poppea. Teatro Comunale, Treviso. The Fair at Sorochyntsi. Scala, Milan. La Boheme. Teatro Pucciniano, Torre del Lago.

Selected exhibitions Tono Zancanaro. (17 December 1972 - 4 February 1973). Palazzo dei Diamanti, Ferrara. 1974. Galleria Civica d'Arte, Palermo. La mano e il verde - Omaggio a Gramsci (1977). 1977. Palazzo Pretorio, Certaldo. 1978. Salone della Ragione, Padua. 1982. Castle Sforzesco, Milan. Tono Zancanaro – Dal Gibbo alle tematiche della liberazione. (1997). Longiano, La Commedia. (25 May 2016 - 10 September 2016). Museo della Grafica. Tono Zancanaro: Demopretoni / Un Viaggio Tragico Erotico Nella Disillusione Postbellica. (18 May - 28 July 2024). Malatestiano Castle, Longiano.