Ugo CELADA ✿

Ugo Celada da Virgilio (1895-1995) was an Italian painter. He was born in Cerese (Mantova) and attended the Brera Academy of Fine Arts, where he was a pupil of the painter Cesare Tallone.

He exhibited in 1920, 1924 and 1926 at the Venice Biennale and in 1936 at the Venice exhibition. Among other things, in 1926 it will be celebrated by the famous French painter and critic Émile Bernard, the then President of the Jury who discovered Cezanne and Van Gogh, as the greatest Italian author.

Approaching the twentieth century, he moved away from it after a short time, shifting his activity and his interest to research that placed him halfway between Magic Realism and the New Objectivity, becoming one of the greatest exponents of figurative painting and precisionism, characterizing himself for a completely anomalous and personal style, which in some ways brings it closer to the work of Cagnaccio di San Pietro and Antonio Donghi and to the contemporary Sciltian. Marginalized by fascism, after a controversy with twentieth-century art, he will live in de facto isolation, painting portraits of the Milanese nobility and bourgeoisie until his death.

His works can be found at the National Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art in Rome. The municipality of Borgo Virgilio has dedicated a section to him in the Virgilian Museum.