Biography
Raffaele Leomporri (b. Rome, Italy 1926 - d. Philadelphia, USA 1974) met Renato Guttuso (1911-1987), during the war years and with whom he worked in the studio of Villa Massimo, Rome. Soon Guttuso's studio, together with those of Leoncillo, Mancini and Mazzacurati, became a meeting place for Roman artists and critics – from the youngsters of «Forma 1» to Giulio Carlo Argan – where realism and abstractionism, new figuration and Marxism were discussed. Leomporri had first solo exhibition in 1956, at the Galleria Il Pincio in Rome; three years later he exhibited at the Galleria La Nuova Pesa. By the 1960s, he was inspired by the new pop-art and cinematographic imagery. Works by him can be found in the collections of the Pinacoteca di La Spezia and Siena, at the Tate Gallery and Derek Hill (1916-2000) purchased a drawing of a Nude in 1959 for the Contemporary Art Society who donated it to the Astley Cheetham Art Collection, Stalybridge in 1963.
