05/07 - 17/08/2025

The Susanna Orlando Gallery is pleased to celebrate once again the great Florentine artist Raffaele Bueno on Saturday, July 5th at 7 PM, with whom it has shared a special bond since 2011, the year of the historic exhibition Micromegalico, curated by the beloved architect Adolfo Natalini. Fourteen years later, another architect, Andrea Ponsi, a friend, a refined observer, and a deep admirer, will guide us through the magical and metaphysical world of Raffaele.

"Raffaele è Ganzo" – this is what he himself said with a satisfied smile while observing his works scattered around the studio. From this phrase comes the title of the exhibition.

For the occasion, numerous unpublished works will be exhibited, never before leaving the rooms of the studio nestled in the greenery of the Bosconi hills, where the artist has lived and worked for over sixty years. In the gallery, visitors will be able to admire his famous small panels, painted “at the tip of the brush” with the slowness and dedication that characterize him. It is a journey that begins in 1962 with the powerful Nudo di nonna, and continues with the most recent works. Among the titles on display: Il fascino discreto della malavita, Miù, luci della ribalta, San Girolamo, Raffaele farfalla, Oriente/Occidente, and other masterpieces. Sixty years of art lived, thought, and breathed.

But this is not just a painting exhibition. It is a portrait of the artist in his entirety. Alongside the works, the public will discover cherished objects, relics, memorabilia, and details of a poetic daily life. Among these: his target board, the writings of visual poet Lamberto Pignotti, and the legendary “big shark,” a sculpture almost four meters long, which will be exhibited for the first time in the gallery.

This exhibition is a tribute to the life, work, enchantment, and the splendid, childlike presence of Raffaele Bueno – an artist greatly loved by Philippe Daverio, who has often emphasized his refinement, irony, and timeless contemporaneity.

Raffaele Bueno, born in the hills of Fiesole in 1945, was described by Philippe Daverio as “the most influential artist of his generation.” A reserved but profound painter, he was part of the informal group of the “Etruscans,” alongside figures such as Giovanni Ragusa, Sheppard Greig, Frances Lansing, Mattew Spender, Maro Gorky, and Roberto Barni – with Daverio himself among the promoters. 

Bueno’s painting is distinguished by its intense emotional and symbolic density. His works, often small in size, enclose vast worlds: microscopic theaters of humanity, full of colors, figures, objects, and atmospheres. He is a "counter-current" artist, to quote Huysmans: he does not paint to live, but lives to paint. His output is deliberately limited – each work is born slowly, in the time necessary for it to take shape, breathe, and carry memory. His scenes, often bucolic, evoke the grand villa in the Florentine countryside where the artist has always lived, but his canvases also include distant landscapes, the result of his travels: from Tuscany to Thailand, every place traversed by Bueno finds expression in a non-linear pictorial narrative, full of suggestions and inner returns. Those who look at his works enter into dialogue with the artist, as if they could follow his steps, sense his thoughts, and recognize what he has chosen to retain from the world. Over the years, Bueno has exhibited in many prestigious venues, including the Susanna Orlando Gallery (2003), Palazzo Reale in Milan (2007), the Galleria d’Arte Studio Eclettica (2008), Palazzo Carli (2016), and the Srisa Gallery of Contemporary Art (2017).