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The ceremony of presenting the picture "Descent
from the Cross" by Renzo Magnanini to the State Hermitage Museum
Italian art critics call Renzo Magnanini, an 80-years old artist and
sculptor from Bologna, "Giottolike" thus stressing identity of his creative
genius with the art of the Renaissance masters. In spring 2000 Magnanini
displayed 52 of his oil paintings, graphic works and sculptures at the
exhibition in Saint Petersburg. In the last 50 years it was the first
personal exhibition of the wonderful artist, who came to know and love
Russian classical literature - Pushkin, Gogol, Turgenev, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky
-when he was a young man.
Renzo Magnanini was born in Bologna in 1920. After graduating from the
Academy of Arts in Venice he was enlisted to the army and sent to the
front line in South Africa. In 1941 in South Sudan the Englishmen took
him prisoner of war. It was only seven years later that he was able to
come back home. During the years in captivity he lived through hard times
in a camp, took keenly the wreck of the transportation ship where he had
been on service. To Bologna the artist brought pictures and drawings representing
camp life of Italians in Africa. Art galleries, however, refused to exhibit
his works. The circumstances forced Renzo Magnanini to swear not to exhibit
his works ever in the future. His participation in the Russo-Italian exhibition
"Pastel" held in 1999-2000 in Yaroslavl became a rare occasion in his
life. For a long time the painter lived in poverty earning his living
by teaching drawing and painting. In the mid 50-s Vatican launched a competition
for a painting in the San-Domenico church in Florence. Magnanini won the
competition and immediately attained fame. His works today are displayed
next to the works of the great Michelangelo.
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Signing the documents

At the ceremony
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