Giovanni Bartolena

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Giovanni Bartolena (24 June 1866 – 16 February 1942) was an Italian painter known mainly for landscapes, sometimes with animals. He was born near Livorno and, as a young man at his family’s villa, enjoyed horse riding. His grandfather Cesare Bartolena, a portrait and battle painter, was his first mentor. He studied briefly at the Florence Academy of Fine Arts and took courses by Giovanni Fattori. After a brief expulsion from the academy, his grandfather helped him return.

He first showed his work in 1892 at the Promotrice di Turin and later exhibited in Florence and Turin. In 1898 he lived in Marseille and Lucca before settling in Florence, where he stayed until the end of World War I. He met Mario Galli and traveled with him to Versilia with Plinio Nomellini. Around 1917–1919 he joined his brother Adolphus in Livorno, where he met industrialist Querci and Fabbrini, the director of Corriere di Livorno, who became among his main patrons.

Bartolena’s first solo show came in 1925 in Milan at the Galleria L’Esame, organized by textile merchant Cassuto; he presented landscapes and still lifes. By 1929 he ended his contract with Cassuto but continued to exhibit in smaller galleries, including Livorno’s Bottega d’Arte and Milan’s Galleria Micheli (1929 and 1931). He also showed at the Venice Biennale in 1930. In the mid-1930s he began to gain some commercial success. He was never very wealthy and was part of a circle of painters who gathered at the Café Bardi in Livorno. He died in Livorno in 1942.