Guerricchio, Luigi

After graduating from high school in his hometown, he attended the School of Nude and then the course of Scenography at the Academy of Fine Arts in Naples; during the years spent in Naples he joined the Young Neapolitan Realists movement and in Portici he met Rocco Scotellaro, a poet from Lucania who was to have a great influence on his artistic life, and thanks to his friendship with Scotellaro he met Carlo Levi and Renato Guttuso in Rome. He moved temporarily to Salzburg where he attended the painting and sculpture schools of Oskar Kokoschka and Giacomo Manzù. In 1956 he moved to Milan to attend the Brera Academy of Fine Arts, where he was a pupil of Domenico Cantatore, and came into contact with the Young Milanese Painting movement and the Corrente art movement. When he returned to Matera in the 1960s, he joined the Italian Communist Party and, in addition to his numerous works, he devoted himself to teaching drawing at various schools. In 1963 one of his works was exhibited at the Contemporary Italian Paintings exhibition, held in several Australian cities. He died in Matera in 1996 of a heart attack on the day of the inauguration of his last work, Il Mercante della Murgia, a realisation of the Mercante in fiera cards drawn by Guerricchio with the figures, flora and fauna, products and ancient trades typical of his land, the Murgia.