Antonio Bueno

Antonio Bueno, born in Berlin on July 21, 1918, and died in Fiesole on September 26, 1984, was a prominent Italian painter of Spanish origin, renowned for his eclectic and experimental body of work. The son of writer and journalist Javier Bueno, who was a correspondent in Berlin for the Madrid newspaper ABC, he spent his childhood between Spain and Switzerland, where he began his artistic training at the Geneva Academy of Fine Arts. In 1937, he exhibited for the first time in Paris at the Salon des Jeunes, and in 1940 he moved to Italy with his brother Xavier, also an artist. There, after an initial post-impressionist phase, he joined the “Modern Painters of Reality” manifesto alongside Gregorio Sciltian, Pietro Annigoni, Alfredo Serri, and his brother, dedicating himself to trompe-l’œil works of great technical virtuosity. In the 1950s, Bueno approached abstractionism while also working as secretary of the magazine Numero, then moving on to a neometaphysical phase with his famous series of plaster pipes (1953–1957). His artistic research continued with realist, material (following the Informal art movement), sign-based, pop, neo-dada, and visual experiments, demonstrating a constant drive for innovation. Among his most recognizable works are the rounded busts and heads, boys dressed as sailors, firefighters, and reinterpretations of masterpieces from art history, all characterized by simplified forms and a neotenic atmosphere. In 1970, he obtained Italian citizenship and settled permanently in Fiesole, continuing to exhibit in Italy and abroad and receiving numerous awards. Antonio Bueno is remembered as one of the most versatile and original Italian artists of the 20th century, capable of traversing the main artistic currents of the century with coherence and curiosity.