Luigi Losito

Luigi Losito (* 1905 in Bari , Italy ; † 1992 in Berlin ) was an Italian painter who had lived in Germany since 1936.

Life

Luigi Losito was born in Bari / southern Italy and grew up there. After graduating from high school, Losito studied at the art academies in Naples and Rome . In 1932 he was appointed lecturer in art history and painting at the art college in Naples. During this time he made nude sketches based on ancient sculptures. Red chalk drawings and first works in oil followed. The main inspiration and theme were the landscapes of southern Italy and the people who lived there. During this time he met Gino Severini , who influenced his artistic development. Exhibitions in Rome, Naples, Venice and Milan followed.

In 1932 Losito met his future wife Lieselotte Hinte in Naples, with whom he settled in Cologne , Germany from 1936 and opened an art gallery. Exhibitions in Frankfurt am Main , Munich and Berlin followed in 1936 . Losito brought back many impressions from his travels through Germany, which he captured in various painting techniques. Losito developed a special geographical reference to the area around Berchtesgaden am Königssee, which is expressed in many of his works. Due to the massive effects of the war, Losito moved with his wife and children Tiziana, Donatello and Leonardo from Cologne to Magdeburg and lived there with his in-laws. In the first years after the end of the Second World War , Losito devoted himself to the rebuilding of the heavily destroyed city of Magdeburg in his artistic themes . Very often the focus was on the working person.

In 1946 and 1947 he took part in major exhibitions with other well-known artists, such as the Moritzburg in Halle (Saale) . On the occasion of his 50th birthday, the exhibition An Italian sees Germany was opened in Meiningen Castle . 98 paintings, watercolors, pastels and drawings, including a portrait of Prof. Franz Konwitschny , as well as motifs from his home in southern Italy, offered an overview of his previous artistic work.

Losito was a member of the Kulturbund of the GDR. However, the upright Catholic was excluded again due to his public criticism of the GDR system in 1956/57, but was again a guest member since the 1960s.

Coming from Grünheide, Luigi Losito lived in the Berlin district of Köpenick from 1962 and rented a studio in Köpenick's Seelenbinderstrasse and a small apartment on Parrisiusstrasse. After his death in 1992, the Italian left behind an extensive fund of several hundred works.

Luigi Losito was honored with works exhibitions in Eisenach and Berlin, among others .

Luigi Losito was friends with Otto Nagel , Paul Kuhfuss , Ursula Wendorff-Weidt , Heinz Rühmann , Hertha Feiler and Willy Fritsch .

plant

In addition to two works in public space (altarpiece, Old Monastery Church, Meyendorf, Saxony-Anhalt, and ceiling painting, Chapel of the Italian Mission, Berlin-Zehlendorf), his work includes around 1000 paintings and drawings in various techniques, but also sculptures in clay, wood and bronze. A representative selection of his works is shown in the exhibition directory of the Meiningen Castle Museum from 1955. His works are almost 100 percent privately owned, only the Beeskow Art Archive preserves a large panel painting (commissioned by the East Berlin magistrate) from the Köpenicker Yacht Shipyard, dated 1972.

literature

B. Ehrhardt: Kreiskalender Oder-Spree, Beeskow 2013, pp. 43–48.