Walter Girotto, 1953 | Symbolic / Figurative painter

Walter Girotto was born in a small northern Italian town called Rovigo and it was May 4th when his family moved to Turin (Italy) to seek their fortune.

The only things he likes to remember about his town of origin are the branches of the weeping willow in the small garden, two tin soldiers and a picture of a whale, drawn at nursery school when he was 4, under the incredulous gaze of a nun who was unaware that her admiring glance was to decide his life as a painter.

In 1985, Girotto took part in his first Art-Expo in New York and, following this auspicious debut in which he sold everything within the first twenty minutes of the opening of the exhibition, he spent the rest of the show apologising for having no other works available.

Gratified by that flattering debut, Girotto took part with equal fortune in the next two New York Art-Expos until, in 1987, the meeting with dealer Robert Bane led to the show at the Tamara Bane Gallery in Los Angeles in 1988 and to which, considering its success, the ones in 1989 and 1990 were the natural sequel.

He faced than public opinion in a multitude of one-man exhibitions, enjoying widespread, sincere approval which often made him, as he says:

… proud and confident I had given, at least to kindred spirits, the pleasure of seeing what my soul rejoiced at imagining transformed into shapes and colours."I don't know what leads us to become an artist or a diplomat, a soldier or a scientist, but I know nature gives us all an equal chance at the beginning.

I'm convinced wealth and poverty present no hurdle as long as we always possess our own soul wherever we are; and wherever we are, we can find a way to express the creativity when urgently yearns to emerge.

It's a question of inner attitude which goes beyond the weaknesses of vanity or the perversions of pride.

I've seen gifted artists living in abject poverty and in extreme luxury and I therefore feel I'm right in assuming that our fate lies simply in nature; it follows hidden paths, whether they be hostile or rewarding, which we cannot know beforehand.

I had an inkling of this in the shade of my childhood willow. I received timorous confirmation in the loneliness forced on me by my introverted youth. It was not long before certainty arrived.

Walter Girotto nasce a Rovigo. Frequenta il liceo artistico. Nel 1975 frequenta l'Accademia delle Belle Arti. Studia i filosi classici, mitologia e teologia.

Le sue prime esposizioni risalgono al 1976, con buon apprezzamento da parte del pubblico.

Nel 1978 comincia una fruttuosa collaborazione con il celebre Centro di Renoir di Taranto. Sarà a New York nel 1985 per la sua prima esposizione, tale è il successo che le sue opere furono tutte vendute nell'arco di venti minuti.

Incoraggiato da questo successo l'artista partecipò l'anno successivo ad una seconda esposizione sempre a New York. Inizia una lunga e fruttuosa collaborazione con Robert e Tamara Bane che si concretizzerà con la prima di una lunga serie di esposizioni alla galleria Tamara Bane di Los Angeles nel 1988. Nel 1995 espone a Nagoya in Giappone.