Cesare Saccaggi

Cesare Saccaggi (1868 - 1934), "New Life Begins"

oil on canvas, signed C. Saccaggi on bottom right

Canvas: 47½ by 36 ½ inches; 120.6x92.7cm.

Framed: 64¼by 51¼ inches; 163.2x130cm.

Exhibitions:

Society for Fine Arts, Palazzo della Permanente, Milan, 1903

Salon of French Artists, Paris, 1904, no. 1582

Biography:

Cesare Saccaggi (Tortona, February 7, 1868 - Tortona, January 3, 1934)

Son of the tailors Domenico Saccaggi and Santina Peila, he managed to attend the Albertina Academy in Turin thanks to a scholarship of 500 lire from the municipality of Tortona. He was a brilliant pupil of Giacomo Grosso, Andrea Gastaldi and Pier Celestino Gilardi. After completing his studies at the Accademia Albertina in 1890, he spent a period of improvement in Rome where he came into contact with the D'Annunzio environment of "Byzantine Rome", with the painting of the Pre-Raphaelites and with the neo-Pompeian one of Lawrence Alma-Tadema. During the nineties his eclectic production ranged from representations of classical and oriental scenes to genre and costume scenes set in past eras, from the Middle Ages to the eighteenth century, to others inspired by a melodramatic verism.

In 1895 he took part in the Permanente in Milan and in three subsequent editions of the Venice Biennale. In 1900 he obtained the bronze medal at the Universal International Exposition in Paris with the pastel Alma Natura Ave. At the beginning of the twentieth century he stayed for a few years in Paris where he participated in the Universal Exposition at the beginning of the century and in three editions of the Salon, dedicating himself with great success to the Art Nouveau graphic activity in collaboration with the Maison Goupil.

Very versatile painter and skilled in the use of different media, from pastel to watercolor to oil. In Paris he also creates advertising works.

His notoriety, in any case, is above all linked to symbolist themes, in which he is able to express himself at his best.

He died in Tortona on 3 January 1934 and is buried there in the city cemetery.