The Portrait Painter of Italy:
ACHILLE BELTRAME
and the Covers of the Magazine ‘Domenica del Corriere’

Civico Museo Parisi Valle

Opening: Saturday 5 April 2025, 5 p.m.
until 29 June 2025 

Achille Beltrame (1871-1945) brought world events into the homes of Italians even before the era of television. With his illustrations of distant countries, historical events, heroes of everyday life and war, culture and traditions of peoples all over the world, fortune and tragedy, glamour, sports and mundane life he fuelled the imagination of Italians like no other.
This was due to his tireless dedication to the illustration of the covers and main stories for ‘Domenica del Corriere’, the most popular Italian weekly magazine of the newspaper Corriere della Sera, from the first issue published on 8 January 1899 to 1944. Every week, Beltrame dedicated himself to depicting news, cultural trends and society events selected by the editors creating a total of 4662 images. They cover a period of time in which history accelerated to an extent never before experienced by mankind. From the end of the Belle Époque to the last days of the Second World War, it was Beltrame's mission to depict the small and big events for the broad public. His last illustration dates back to 26 November 1944, the day of the Allied bombardments of Italian cities. Shortly after, he handed over the baton at the editorial office of ‘Domenica del Corriere’ to another master of Italian illustration, his pupil and collaborator Walter Molino (1915-1997).

His communicative ability was deeply rooted in tradition. In fact, Achille Beltrame was first of all a painter. He was born in Arzignano, in the province of Vicenza, where he inherited that particular colouring and lighting technique that was characteristic of the great Venetian School. He moved to Milan to attend painting courses at the Brera Academy held by Francesco Hayez (1791-1882) and Giuseppe Bertini (1825-1898).
For all his life he was a painter, a capable fresco painter, graphic designer, and till his last days an illustrator for La Lettura, musical scores, postcards, posters and advertising.

This exhibition is dedicated to the rediscovery of Achille Beltrame as a painter thanks to a valuable selection of paintings and drawings which testify the expressive fluency and immediate communication with the viewers that figure among the most important qualities of his prodigious and versatile career.
On display are portraits, sketches of rare brilliance, oils and watercolours never shown before or not exhibited for decades. One of his earliest works, Idillio romano (Roman Idyll), dated 1891, is a work of perfect and flawless execution, a summary of the lesson on myth taught at the academy by Hayez and Bertini.

In contrast, the pastel and oil portraits reveal an introspective dimension of Beltrame's work, far from the clamours of big history. These are mainly female portraits, anticipated by the only existing self-portrait, a pastel of 1895. They are works rich in introspection where the gaze of the figures appears almost shy; but they best convey human nature, leaving the artist in background. Achille Beltrame was gentle and reserved, yet a leading figure of his time. A multitude of fantastic images unfold before the visitor's eyes, also thanks to a careful selection of the covers of the magazine Domenica del Corriere. At the same time, Beltrame leaves few but essential words behind. He wrote them down in a private diary, and in this day and age they are a reminder never to lose sight of respect and humanity:  ‘On paper, I have killed hundreds of people, plundered cities and destroyed entire territories. In reality, I am the least violent, most peace-loving man in the world’.

The works and the issues of the Domenica del Corriere here on display come from private collections. They testify the wide diffusion of Achille Beltrame's work among private collectors.The most important core of works is preserved and exhibited permanently in the municipality of Arzignano (VI).

Organization and coordination:
Civico Museo “Parisi Valle”

Exhibition curated by:
Federico Crimi

With the support of:
Municipality of Maccagno with Pino and Veddasca (VA)
Pro loco Maccagno (VA)

With thanks to:
Quadreria dell'800,

With the contribution of Regione Lombardia

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ACHILLE BELTRAME
BIOGRAPHY  

Achille Beltrame (Arzignano, 19 March 1871 - Milan, 19 February 1945) was an Italian painter and illustrator.

He was the seventh child of Giambattista Beltrame, a tanning craftsman, and Teresa Brusarosco. His mother, a passionate reader of classical literature, named all eight brothers and sisters after heroes from Greek mythology: Achille, Oreste, Ulisse, Antenore, Pilade, Ettore, Argia and Antigone.

Encouraged by the family's humanistic tradition, Achille showed great talent in drawing from an early age and was enabled to follow his inclination thanks, above all, to the help of his brother Oreste.

From 1883 to 1886 he attended the Royal Technical School in Vicenza where he was awarded the ‘Special Honourable Mention in Drawing’.

In the autumn of 1886, he moved to Milan where he lived at the house of his brother Oreste, a pharmacist at the Ospedale Maggiore. Achille was thus able to matriculate at the Brera Academy of Fine Arts with the ambition to become a painter. In 1889/1890 he successfully attended the Nude School and was later accepted to Giuseppe Bertini's courses at the Special School of Painting. In 1890 he won the Mylius Prize with the work Fracta Virtus, and in 1892 he obtained his diploma.

In those years, Achille followed his family to Vicenza, where they had transferred their business and their residence. He spent some time in the Venetian city. There, he met Magno Magni, a chemical industrialist from Como who was to become one of the most important supporters of the young artist.

In 1893, he returned to Milan, still living at the house of his brother Oreste, and continued his successful collaboration with the Brera Academy. He won several honorary titles and gradually his recognition grew among critics and the public.

In 1892, he had already been awarded the title of honorary member of the prestigious Milanese Academy. In 1894, he presented a work that was specially created for the second Brera Triennale, Canova modelling Mary Magdalene, which won him the Gavazzi Prize. The work was bought by an American collector and shipped to the United States, with the buyer on board. Unfortunately, the ship sank during the Atlantic crossing. One of the rare photographs of the lost painting is shown in the exhibition.

In 1895, when Beltrame was a recognized artist and had obtained many titles and prizes, he was elected as a councillor of the Brera Academy.

In 1896, he went to Montenegro in the hope of portraying Princess Elena, whose engagement to Vittorio Emmanuele of Savoy had been announced. In Cettigne, however, a painter from Trieste had already started to work on the portrait.

But there, in Montenegro, he was discovered by Eduardo Ximenes, an illustrator and co-founder of the weekly magazine L'Illustrazione Italiana, who convinced him to work for his newspaper. Thus Beltrame started his career as a graphic artist, a career that turned out to be full of dedication and success.

In 1897, he took part in the third Triennale in Milan with the works Ego sum flos campi and La fuga di Nerone. These works reveal that classical inspiration in form and content learned at the Milan academy and represented, in this exhibition, by the outstanding Praeludium of 1891 exhibited in Room 2.

Unfortunately, several other works of allegorical character by Beltrame have disappeared: La Scienza (Science, 1925), painted on the ceiling of the staircase of the Serotherapeutic Institute in Milan; La danza delle Ore (Dance of the Hours, 1927), on the ceiling of the Bernocchi factory in Legnano; L'Aurora o Carro di Febo (The Aurora or Chariot of Phoebus 1928), a mural painting in Bernocchi’s Villa Anita in Stresa; La Scienza e il Genio dominano le forze (Science and Genius dominate the Forces, 1929), a fresco in the Adamello Electricity Company building in Milan.

Instead, Beltrame’s rather rare works in the field of sacred art have survived. The portrait of San Gaetano for the lunette of the eponymous oratory in Corso Mazzini in Arzignano, painted in early years, is perhaps his first known attempt. A later work, San Gerolamo del deserto (Saint Jerome of the Desert), a gift by the artist to his hometown, is still on display in the cathedral sacristy. Another work that survived is a San Giuseppe con il Bambino (St. Joseph with Child), a large altarpiece painted in Milan in 1914 and donated to the Oratory of San Giuseppe in Arzignano. Several Madonnas were painted on commission and for private devotion. Finally, the already mentioned Ego sum flos campi, a subject inspired by Marian tradition, was published by Illustrazione Italiana in December 1914 as a Christmas painting.

In 1906, Beltrame travelled to Tunisia together with Magno Magni. Beltrame was charged with carrying out a report on a mine purchased there by the industrialist. This was an opportunity to closely study those exotic worlds he was depicting for the covers of Domenica del Corriere. In 1911, together with a large group of artists (Paolo Sala, Filippo Carcano, Luigi Rossi, Leonardo Bazzaro and others), he founded the Lombard Watercolourists Association in Milan. For a few terms, from 1929, he was also the president of the association.

Until the end of the 1930s, Beltrame’s career was divided between his work for newspapers and graphics and his passion for painting, which he also cultivated during his holidays on the lakes, in the beloved Dolomites and in Liguria. This is proven by countless views of the Ligurian Riviera: Marina con fanciulla e cane (Marina with Girl an Dog), Riparazione delle reti (Repair of the Nets) and La tintura delle reti (Tinting the Nets), an impressive watercolour with which he participated in the 14th Venice Biennale in 1924.

In 1937, he moved to Bergamo for a short period to follow the treatment of his wife Giovanna Cocitto (born in Udine in 1868), called Giannina, whom he had known in his early years in Milan and probably met at the Brera Academy. The couple had been married since 1907.

Despite the treatment, Giannina died in 1938. The loss of his wife was the beginning of a painful period, also due to the war and the destruction of his atelier in contrada Garibaldi in Milan in a bomb attack.

In 1941, Achille Beltrame held his first retrospective exhibition thanks to the support of Pompeo Ranzani, who had successfully opened a gallery in Via Brera in Milan.

On 20 December 1942, Beltrame left the Lombard capital to find shelter in Bressana Bottarone, in the countryside south of Pavia. This step had become inevitable due to the bombardments that were devastating Milan; but what followed were years of regret: ‘What a pain,’ he recalled, ‘how sad at my age to no longer have the place I have created with such passion!’

The Milanese atelier, so fundamental to the artist's career and emotions, has been brought back to life in this exhibition thanks to the fortunate recovery of the original furniture and   contemporary photographs.

In choosing a shelter in the countryside, far from Milanese memories, Achille was supported by Clara Fedetto (1912-2011), his last model and muse. To her, Beltrame dedicated the iconic portrait he painted in those years of friendship and affection: Maliarda (1935-1939), here on display.

Despite his constant dedication in so many fields during his career, in 1944 he was denied the title ‘Accademico d'Italia’ because he was not a member of the fascist party.

On 7 February 1945, during a walk, he was caught by an illness. On 19 February 1945, Achille Beltrame died at his nephew's house in Milan.

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ROOM 1
ACHILLE BELTRAME:
A SINFONY OF EMOTIONS

The paintings, watercolours and sketches gathered in the rooms 1 and 2 of the exhibition offer a comprehensive panorama of the artist's eclectic and versatile oeuvre, also thanks to the time span covering Beltrame's entire career, from his first steps to his last years.

The itinerary begins with an early Self-portrait, a chalk on cardboard dated 1895. A pendant of this picture was executed in the same year in a similar technique and is dedicated to Giannina, his first love and future wife.

The overall tone of the two portraits is intimate, enhanced by the coloured chalk drawing technique. In the self-portrait, the artist even abandons the traditional attributes, the tools of the profession (brushes, palette). Biographical and psychological notions are only conveyed  by the language of painting and by the headdress, probably a tribute to Raphael. Beltrame depicts himself in a half-length portrait, composed according to the rule of thirds, with a pensive expression ‘of thoughts veiled in shadow and tenderness’ (Luigina Bortolatto). Nevertheless, he succeeds in establishing an intense and mysterious dialogue with the viewer to whom he completely turns his face.

Both pastels show the influence of Lombard tradition on the young artist, with its sense of colour and nuance, filtered by the sensitivity of Giuseppe Carnovali, called Il Piccio, and Daniele Ranzoni.

Even decades later, around 1921, the oil paintings dedicated to his beloved niece Elena, the daughter of his sister Antigone, still show a similar language: Elena in the Moonlight (1921) and Elena on the Sofa (c. 1921).

In the smaller picture, Elena is lying on a sofa between blankets and curtains. In the half-length portrait, the artist’s niece is depicted with light from above falling on her hair, but leaving her face in shadow. The whole painting is immersed into the cold tones and metallic reflections that the almost lunar light creates on Elena’s hair, clothes and preciously embroidered bustier. The impressive effect of the nocturnal atmosphere earned the work the title Elena in the moonlight. It occupies an important place in Achille Beltrame's art of portraying.

It is the privilege of this exhibition to present some works never exhibited before thanks to the generosity of private collectors. The most important one is the oil painting on canvas, a Model's Face, a work that has never appeared on the market. The painting is undated, but the atmosphere and setting are similar to Elena in the Moonlight. It is a portrait immersed in lunar tones, the model’s face is rendered in profile, her head inclined and her gaze avoiding the viewer. Unusually, the oil painting has square dimensions (c. 50 x 50 cm). It can be dated around 1920-1925 for the now almost Art Deco style of clothing and haircut.

Contrasting with these discreet portraits are the four excellent female nudes in the exhibition. These are a pencil on cardboard (Female Nude, 1910-1915, never exhibited) and two watercolours, Donnina, also known as Oriental Nude (1915-1921) and The Fire Woman (1915-1920, never exhibited). They are accompanied by a study of a Rear View Nude in red chalk, probably the earliest drawing of the series (1890-1900, never exhibited).

In these drawings, Beltrame explores the female body, intentionally moving on the border of erotic art. This did not escape the attention of his contemporaries. Donnina, for example, was the design for the advertising postcards of a Neapolitan soap company, but was rejected by the publisher.

This group of works shows that the young painter had been an excellent draughtsman of nudes since his time at the academy.

The itinerary concludes with a return to the intimacy of emotion. In the last years of his life, Beltrame, who had lost his family and remained without children, experienced moments of serenity with Clara Fedetto from Pavia who was the model for a considerable group of artists. Maliarda, an exceptional loan for the exhibition (1935-1939, watercolour on paper), is undoubtedly one of Beltrame's most celebrated and famous works. It was first exhibited in 1946 at the Galleria Italiana d'Arte in Milan in the retrospective dedicated to Beltrame one year after his death. In Maliarda, the artist uses the play of light falling from above as already could be observed in Elena in the moonlight. But this time the lighting is applied to create a portrait of haughty expression, which is yet highly attractive and beguiling. 

The room also shows the reconstruction of Beltrame’s studio in Via Garibaldi, where the artist lived and worked from his early Milanese years to the bombardment in 1943. On display are a few remaining original pieces. The two carved walnut chairs in neo-Renaissance style, which also appear in the photographs, date back to 1886 and are possibly of Venetian fabrication. The initials A.B. are carved on the back. The round carpet is perhaps of Maghreb origin and a reminiscence of the painter's few journeys beyond Italy. On the easel, finally, a painting that, according to family memories, Achille always kept by his side, the picture of the little dog Fossy (1912, oil on panel, never exhibited).

The corner closes with the cover of the Domenica del Corriere that the pupil Walter Molino dedicated to his master in 1960. Not surprisingly, Beltrame is portrayed in his studio, surrounded by memories, works and studies of far-away countries.

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ROOM 2
THE PUBLIC SIDE
OF ACHILLE BELTRAME  

The second room invites the visitor to explore the public side of Achille Beltrame's painting and to observe the exceptional technique that distinguished the artist who was skilful as few others in oil and watercolour.

In the exhibition, two pieces are presented for the first time ever: ll Verziere (The Garden) in Milan and Oh! Issa. The great Praeludium is shown for the second time after the retrospective of 1996 in Arzignano on occasion of the 150th anniversary of the artist’s birth.

Praeludium, also known as Idillio romano (Roman Idyll, 1891, oil on canvas) dominates the centre of the room. The work was created during Beltrame’s studies at the academy and exhibited at the first Triennale in Milan. The subject is in line with the widely spread interest in the ancient world in which all fields of art and crafts were involved at the end of the 19th century. However, Beltrame seems to be somehow uneasy with classic philology. Instead of choosing a theme from mythology, he depicted a genre scene, two lovers engaged in courting. And more than this, for the architectural setting he was inspired by plaster copies in the academy reproducing friezes from the Parthenon and other Greek temples, but he used them in an arbitrary arrangement. The young man, in in this work, was already trying to find his own way, that of a private, poetical and introspective painting. Not by chance, the models of the two lovers were family members, Antigone, his younger sister, and her then fiancé, Attilio.

The whole setting is very convincing and the work is technically demanding in terms of the brilliance of the marble and the rendering of the various precious materials of the wood, iron and terracotta artefacts. It can compete with the greatest and most famous Umbertine scenography of the time, suspended between the modern and the ancient, by Vittorio Matteo Corcos or Francesco Paolo Michetti.

 

Il Verziere (The Garden, oil on panel) is an uncommon work. In fact, as a graphic, Beltrame,  dedicated an ample series of printed images to Milan, above all numerous illustrations that appeared in the Domenica del Corriere. Famous is the postcard of the inauguration of the Simplon railway tunnel, which he created for the Universal Exhibition hosted in Milan in 1906. In contrast, only a few dozen paintings are set in the Lombard capital. Those known so far are preserved in the Milan Museum: sixteen oils and paintings commissioned by Luigi Beretta. Outstanding in this group is Verziere, an oil on panel painted around 1915, which,  of slightly larger dimensions, is a reference for the dating of the work in the exhibition.

The visitor's eyes are equally attracted by a group of sailors pulling a fishing boat on shore in the work entitled Oh! Issa. (1936). Here, the artist really reaches the peak of brilliance in watercolour technique and a supreme narrative ability in rendering the dynamics of the scene and the toil of the men at the trailing rope. These qualities were so outstanding that the editors of the Domenica del Corriere preferred Beltrame’s illustrations to photographs.

Soldiers in the Snow (1916-17) is a watercolour of equal quality which is based on the countless scenes of battlefields, trenches and wars that the artist was commissioned to depict for the magazine. Even more than the printed versions, this watercolour gives evidence of Beltrame's skill in rendering snow, the rocky peaks and the deep gorges of the mountains.

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GALLERY
BELTRAME AS AN ILLUSTRATOR FOR
THE ‘DOMENICA DEL CORRIERE’

As already mentioned in the biography, Beltrame's career as an illustrator started by coincidence when, in 1896, he met Eduardo Ximenes in Montenegro. Impressed by the skill that the young man from Vicenza showed in portraying the customs of the locals, Ximenes asked him to design some covers of Illustrazione Italiana, then Italy's leading illustrated magazine. The partnership with the magazine would last until 1898.

In the following year, Beltrame started to work for the Domenica del Corriere, a collaboration that would last a lifetime. The new magazine was commissioned by Luigi Albertini, then managing director of the Corriere della Sera. It appeared for the first time on 8 January 1899 as an illustrated supplement to the Corriere della Sera. Printed in large format, it had twelve pages and was distributed free to the subscribers of the Corriere; it could also be purchased at newsstands for 10 centesimi.

The Sunday supplement was not conceived as a news journal, but as a ’magazine of the Italians’ which was intended to feature, like a calendar, the lucky days, the disasters, the small and big events of life.

The newspaper's highlight were the two illustrations per issue, on the front and on the back, entrusted from the beginning to Achille Beltrame.

The countless variety of subjects commissioned to him by editor Eligio Possenti can be resumed only in part in this exhibition thanks to the generosity of private collectors.

The overall 4662 images were completely invented by Beltrame and set in every corner of the world. This required not only an unlimited power of imagination, but an almost physical effort.

Achille had his own methods of coping with the close deadline imposed by the editors.  Before sitting down to work at his table, he used to gulp down two buttered eggs. We know this from the truly tasty story by Dino Buzzati, the first of Beltrame's admirers, who in 1967 remembered him in the following way:

‘Beltrame would turn up at the editorial office every Monday morning to have the topic of the first page. […] After the meeting with the chief editor of Domenica, he would hurry to his studio in Corso Garibaldi, gulp down two buttered eggs [...] then lock the door [...] and sit at a table surrounded by curtains and lit by a lamp even in broad daylight. [...] Documentary photographs, places, streets, buildings, faces, were close to him. He would start to work, using first pencil and then more or less diluted Indian ink. Beltrame used to leave the editor's office at around half past twelve, by seven in the afternoon he was already back with the completed drawing wrapped in a newspaper under his arm. And with an apprehension that had never left him in so many years he would show it to the chief editor who would say: ‘Not bad, not bad, bravo Beltrame. You are very promising. It means we'll give you the job for the next issue too'. And the illustrator laughed cheerfully’.

It can be estimated that the Domenica del Corriere reached print runs in the hundreds of thousands. After Beltrame had left, no less than 350 illustrators worked on the graphics, in addition to the previously mentioned Walter Molino. The paper survived for almost a hundred years, until 1989, under renowned editors such as Indro Montanelli and Maurizio Costanzo.

In addition to his work for the Domenica, Beltrame, the illustrator managed to devote himself to an infinite range of works: almost two hundreds postcards on different subjects, posters and advertisements for the various activities of his friend and supporter Magno Magni. He was also a designer for the musical editor Officine Grafiche Ricordi, including advertising posters and musical scores. From 1912 to 1919, again for the Corriere della Sera, he created covers for the cultural supplement La Lettura.

Perhaps many of us have ‘a Beltrame’ in our homes without knowing it, in a cupboard drawer, among musical scores, newspaper cuttings or family memories.

Online:

Alberto Lorenzi, Achille Beltrame, entry in Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani (1966);

Achille Beltrame, entry in Wikipedia.

 

Sources:

Annalisa Cera, Biography and Worksheet, in Achille Beltrame. La sapienza del comunicare. Illustrare con la pittura, Electa, Milan 1996 (exhibition catalogue).

L'Agordino di Achille Beltrame, edited by Luigina Bertolatto,

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Locandina (click per ingrandire)

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 Images from the exhibition (click to enlarge)

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