Renzo Galardini exhibits in Galleria Gagliardi since 2014.
Renzo Galardini was born in 1946,
Master Galardini is a classicist, a renaissance, his technique, his subjects evoke the ancient world, expressing the strength of the painting and the teaching of the Ancients. We might add that he is a romantic, a sentimentalist, master of that decadent sense promoted by a purely Northern European taste, a taste that refers to the exotic, to travel, to dream, to match ultra-sensitive, to the great Hieronymus Bosch, a painter of the fifteenth century which great artists were fascinated as Max Ernst, Giorgio de Chirico, Salvador Dali and Marc Chagall. Renzo Galardini is also a contemporary artist, lives and relives in his compositions the tensions of mass society: small headless figures in a boundless space that act and operate intent to make unusual and sometimes impossible actions. These figures are lost in the equilibrium of the composition as the man in the unnatural everyday space of the consumer society, but there is no ugliness, only manic and delicate brush strokes that make the painting work and give a message. Coexist, therefore, heterogeneous components that emphasize creativity and sensibility of the painter, qualifying him as a true artist, the undisputed technical ability and imagination come together in the supremacy of deception surreal. Reminiscences and allegories made of childish games, horses, turtles, puppets and garlands with which the artist expresses their social and moral values, making his painting cultured and full of meanings. The essence of the real fairy tale is narrated in the settings, spaces in which the artist is a puppeteer with thin wire that holds its own still life painting made of textiles and paper, of great refinement and elegance.
He got his high school diploma at the Lucca Art Institute under Guglielmo Malato and Vitaliano De Angelis and then attended the stage designing course at the Fine Arts Academy of Florence. He is a painter, engraver and ceramist. In 1984 he was reported in the Bolaffi catalogue for graphic art by Enzo Carli with the following motivation: «For the provocative and ironic creativity of his clear graphic technique used to recall in an unprecedented poetic fashion historical simulacrums, emblems and symbols, as well as present-day objects».
He has held exhibitions in Italy, in various American museums and in Germany. He has taken part in important graphic art exhibits such as: 1981, Presence of graphic art in Tuscany, Castello Pasquini, Castiglioncello; 1986, Biennial “Tono Zanconaro”, Vico d’Elsa; 1987, International Graphic Art Exhibit of Tampa, Florida; 1992, 6th International Biennial Graphic Exhibition Fantastic Italian Engraving, Tenno, Trento; 1993, Engraved elsewhere, old Abattoir, Cagliari; Italian Engraving Repertoire, Drawings and Prints Studio Le Cappuccine, Bagnocavallo (2007 and 2013 also); 1998, Engraving in Pisa in the 20th century, Limonaia di Palazzo Ruschi, Pisa; 2008, 6th “Leonardo Sciascia” Prize Amateur d’Estampes, Castle Sforzesco, Milan; 2012, 1st Engraving Biennial “Carmelo Floris”, Olzai, Nuoro.
Some of the painting exhibitions he has taken part in: 1977, Artists from Pisa, Sangallo Fortress, Pisa; 1980, National Exhibition Umberto Vittorini, Abbey of San Zeno, Pisa; 1981, Meetings in Pisa, San Giuliano Terme; 1984, Art for peace and work, Castello Pasquini, Castiglioncello; Public Library, Cecina; Public Library, Piombino; 1985, For Alessandro Manzoni, the Centre Grattacielo, Livorno; 1991, 10th Exhibit Town of Buti, Theatre “Francesco Di Bartolo”, Buti, Pisa; 1996, Monumentally Yours, Villa Pacchiani, Santa Croce sull’Arno, Pisa; 1998, 1498-1998, Savonarola atmospheres, the Centre Grattacielo, Livorno; 1999, Art for life, old Monastery of the Benedictine Nuns, Pisa and Chimneys of Catania; 2000, Ex voto for the millennium, National Museum of the Carthusian monastery of Calci, Pisa; 2003, Made in Italy. Six contemporary artists, The Grace Museum, Abilene, Texas; 2008, Itinerant encounters and unveilings in an historical place in Livorno, Bottini dell’Olio, Livorno; 2011, Fantasticart, Palazzo Inquilini, San Miniato al Tedesco, Pisa; 2012, This is my river, Villa Pacchiani, Santa Croce Sull’Arno, Pisa; 2013, Viva Verdi, Mo.Ca. Contemporary Art, Montecatini Terme, Pistoia; 2014, Rosso Fiorentino Rosso vivo, Palazzo dei Priori, Volterra, Pisa; The friends of Sirio. Franchi Galardini Lombardi Possenti, Bandini Gallery, Cecina, Livorno.
Some of his numerous graphic art publications: 1980, The sick harp and other drolleries, Introduction by Michele Feo; Mythographies of the suburbs. 12 memories of Pisa, texts by Silvano Burgalassi and Nicola Micieli; 1981, Forever banish laziness from town; 1986 Six plates for an adventure in the woods, with a ballad by Nicola Micieli; 1992, complete catalogue of his engravings, edited by Nicola Micieli with preface by Enzo Carli, Edison, Bologna, Mitografie a altre favole. curated by Nicola Miceli Museo della Grafica, Pisa.
In 2022, an important and complete solo exhibition was dedicated to him at the Graphics Museum in Pisa, "Renzo Galardini - Mythography and other Fables" curated by Nicola Micieli.
His one-man exhibitions: Pisa, Livorno, Santa Croce sull’Arno, Trani, Lucca in Italy and Berlin Germany, Abilene, Texas USA. Many art critics have written texts on his work, including: Dino Carlesi, Giuseppe Cordoni, Elisa Gradi, Nicola Micieli, Enzo Carli.