Armando Buratti, painter and engraver of the Portonaccio Group, dies at 93

Armando Buratti, a painter and engraver active in Rome since the 1950s and a key member of the Gruppo di Portonaccio, died on February 8, 2018, at age 93. Born in Rome in 1924 and raised in the Portonaccio district, Buratti was self-taught and began painting during World War II alongside childhood friend Renzo Vespignani, adopting a figurative style aligned with Realism. He co-founded the Gruppo di Portonaccio in the immediate postwar period, depicting suburban life and war ruins. His first solo show was in 1946 at Rome's studio La Finestra. A major exhibition came in the mid-1950s when Bruno Sargentini, a collector who later co-founded Galleria L'Attico with his son Fabio, organized a show at Galleria La Tartaruga in Via del Babuino. There, Buratti presented his 'white paintings,' introduced by critic Maurizio Calvesi in his debut as an art critic. Fabio Sargentini recalls that his father had collected Buratti's work since the late 1940s. Despite participating in the Venice Biennale in 1956 and the Rome Quadriennale in 1955 and 1959, Buratti remained solitary and outside the art star system. Sargentini hopes an institution will dedicate a retrospective to Buratti, offering to lend works inherited from his father.