Renato Birolli

The recorded working language is Italian. Places of work recorded in the authority are Milan, Rome and Paris. Work by Renato Birolli is recorded in the collections of The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Buffalo AKG Art Museum, Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, National Museum of Fine Arts, Argentina and Princeton Art Museum.

Birolli was born at Verona to a family of industrial workers. In 1923 he moved to Milan where he formed an avant-gardist group with artists such as Renato Guttuso, Giacomo Manzù and Aligi Sassu. In 1937 he was a member of the artistical movement Corrente di Vita. In the same year, he was arrested by the Fascist government for opposing the regime. He subsequently cast painting aside to devote himself to supporting Communist causes and, later, the partisan resistance. After World War II, in 1947, Birolli moved to Paris. Here his painting style changed under the influence of Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso, moving first to a post-Cubist position and then to a somehow abstract form of lyrism. He died suddenly in Milan in 1959. His son Zeno Birolli (1939–2014) was an art critic and historian.