Tito Cittadini

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…only what is reflected in the inner mirror, what a deep and absolute chord finds within the soul. Tito Cittadini, January 1920

Born into a well-off family of Italian emigrants, he began to study architecture and simultaneously became a member of the intellectual circle “Parera group”. In 1911, he gave up his studies and, following his artistic vocation, moved to Paris, where Hermen Anglada Camarasa became his teacher at the Vitti Academy. Influenced by this Catalan painter, on June 1913, he travelled to Majorca for the first time, meeting Anglada and his students at Cala Sant Vicenç. He was travelling through Italy at the outbreak of the First World War and, knowing that Anglada and other painters had settled in Port de Pollença, he did the same and later settled in Pollença’s Horta.

His early works are defined by symbolist features of Pollença’s landscape free of any human presence, which he spread internationally through several exhibitions in Buenos Aires, Montevideo and Rome. The first exhibition in Majorca was a group exhibition held at La Veda in 1917, together with Roberto Montenegro and Anibal Nocetti. In 1920, he held his first individual exhibition at the same place with a total of 12 works. That same year, he won first prize with La herida de la montaña at the 1st Regional Art Exhibition held in Palma, and the following year, he won first prize at the Salon Anual de Bellas Artes in Buenos Aires with Tarde.

From 1922 onwards, he abandoned the transcendental and decorative features, giving way to a mixture of Post-Impressionism and a more volumetric style of painting, following Cézanne’s ideas; he kept on spreading his work internationally, such as in Pittsburgh, Los Angeles, New York and London. He participated in the 13th Venice International Art Exhibition as part of the Argentinean section. In 1924, Marzo en la huerta won first prize at the National Exhibition of Fine Arts in Madrid, and in March 1927, he held a second individual exhibition at La Veda, where there was a noticeable change in his topics and technique. He had been living in Majorca for more than ten years at the time, and he chose themes such as human figures, which he considered the most appealing to him. In 1929 he was already an acclaimed artist, as it is shown in the exhibition at Galerías Costa and Amigos del Arte in Buenos Aires. As a result, the canvas Cala Sant Vicenç was acquired by the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes and Campesina by the Museo Provincial de Bellas Artes de La Plata.

The following years were a time of research; after the 1932 exhibition at Galerias Costa, he became interested in a more realistic and human approach of Majorca, which is recreated in its shapes, and in some cases, it gets close to a mild avant-garde language such as Expressionism. The Civil War period was a hiatus as he travelled to Italy, where he lived until 1938, an opportunity he took to exhibit in Trieste and Milan. When he returned to Pollença, he did not introduce many innovations into his painting. During these years, he devoted himself to art criticism on the pages of Revista, published by the Círculo de Bellas Artes, «Pretextos», especially the article «La escuela pollencina”. In 1947, he travelled to Argentina and exhibited at the Salon Müller some works that did not receive a very favourable critique. When he returned to Majorca, he was appointed vice-consul of Argentina, when Majorcan migration was very active. As an official of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, he was called upon in 1951, which he took advantage of to exhibit in Argentina’s capital. However, adapting to his native city was difficult, as he had lived abroad for many years, and he returned for good in 1952. From this last period, it is worth mentioning his participation at the Pittsburgh International Exhibition. In his later years, he lived in Cala Major, getting actively involved in Palma’s cultural life and giving painting classes.

Francisca Lladó Pol
PhD in Art History – Professor at the Universitat de les Illes Balears