Trento Longaretti

Trento Longaretti (27 September 1916 – 7 June 2017) was an Italian painter. He studied at the Brera Academy in the 1930s, where he was taught by renowned artists, including painters Aldo Carpi and Pompeo Borra, and sculptors Francesco Messina and Marino Marini. He stated that painting is an "elixir for long life", and continued to paint and exhibit as a centenarian.

He was on the fringes of the Corrente movement started by his friends and classmates in the 1930s to oppose the Novecento Italiano movement that was influenced by Italian Fascism. He was drafted by the Italian Army in 1939, completing tours of duty that until 1945 interrupted his artwork, though still enabling him to attend several exhibitions, including the Mostra degli artisti in armi exhibit at the Palazzo delle Esposizioni in Rome.

The themes of his post-war works involved more sacred art, and he adopted an anti-war stance and opposition to violence as a result of his wartime service, which features prominently in works depicting mothers opposing violence. Humility features in many of his works, including the depiction of characters such as beggars, vagrants, and vagabonds, and themes such as loneliness, abandonment, exile, pilgrimage, and poverty. Longaretti stated that he preferred creating works that are "accessible and immediately enjoyable". His oil paintings have been described as dense and oily like those of Paul Cézanne, and his style has similarities to the fantasy settings of Marc Chagall and "pictorial culture" of Egon Schiele. His still life paintings have been described as "delicate and almost religious".

He became involved in the Italian figurative art movement of the mid-1900s. His growing stature as a painter in Italy led to exhibitions at increasingly prestigious events, such as the Venice Biennale and Rome Quadriennale. It ultimately led to Longaretti earning the "Chair of Painting" and becoming the director of the Accademia Carrara in Bergamo in 1953, a position he held until he retired from it in 1978. He maintained studios in the città alta of Bergamo and in Corniglia within the Cinque Terre which he described as one of the most beautiful places in the world.