Giuseppe Santomaso, painter, printmaker and teacher, was born in Venice, Italy on September 26, 1907. He studied at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Venice from 1932-1934. Santomaso began working in graphic design in 1938 and held his first solo exhibition in Paris the following year.

Santomaso’s work was exhibited in the Quadrennial of Rome in 1943 and, in 1946, he was a founding member of the anti-fascist “Organization Nuova Secessione Artistica Italiana-Fronte Nuovo Della Art” in Venice. He frequently participated in the Venice Biennial and he was awarded he Venice Municipality Prize in 1948. Other prizes included the Graziano Prize of the Galleria del Naviglio in Milan in 1956 and the Mostra Internazionale Di Pittura Contemporanea de Valagno in 1958.

He taught at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Venice from 1957 to 1975. His first exhibition in the United States was mounted at the Grace Borgenicht Gallery in New York in 1957.

Santomaso had an exhibition at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam in 1960 and the following year he participated in the Biennale of São Paulo. A retrospective of his work traveled from the Kunstverein in Hamburg to the Haus am Lützowplatz in Berlin and to the Museum am Ostwall in Dortmund in 1965 and 1966. Exhibitions of his work were presented in 1979 by the Joan Miró Foundation in Barcelona and the National Gallery of Modern Art in Munich.

Giuseppe Santomaso died in Venice on May 23, 1990.

(source: Le Coin Des Arts / Thaddée Poliakoff Fine Art)