Renato Guttuso (1912-1987)

Carretto con canvoli depicts, as the title implies, a Sicilian cart decorated with cauliflower with a scene from the funeral of Palmiro Togliatti. Deceased suddenly in 1964, Togliatti was the leader of the Italian Communist Party and under his leadership, the party became the second largest in the country in 1950s until his death. Renato Guttuso painted the same subject more than once in the same year, including Funeral di Togliatti, the very large work which became one of his most important and well-known, and is currently held in the collection of Museo d’Arte Moderna di Bologna. For Guttuso, the cauliflower is of particular importance and is depicted numerous times in his oeuvre. Franco Grasso writes in 1973 in l’Ora, A Sicilian daily newspaper: “Here is celebrated especially the cauliflower triumph of Sicilian broccoli, the most plebeian , the most vulgar, but the most lush of vegetables”.