Portraits, scenes of everyday life, his still life and landscapes make Clement Tafuri a point of reference of Neapolitan realism. The energetic and lively painting, its exuberant chromaticism successfully spread its works in Italy and abroad.
1903
1971
Painter
Clemente Tafuri was born in Salerno in 1903 and is formed at the workshop of a Salernitano ornate, he attends the Academy of Fine Arts of Naples where he excels immediately in a painting with original traits and vivid chromaticism.
He was the heir of the color and light of the Neapolitan school in the mid-19th century, and studied accurately the seventeenth and Caravaggio.
His energetic painting mirrored his strong and restless personality, which prompted him to travel a lot throughout Italy, especially during the years of World War II. He will stay in Rijeka, Milan, Rome and Ravello as well as in his Salerno to settle permanently in Genoa where he died in 1971.
During his career, he participated in several exhibitions and received numerous awards. They are personally dedicated to Rome, Genoa, Naples, Cannes, Lausanne and Marseille.
Between the 1940s and 1950s, he collaborated as an illustrator at the “Domenica del Corriere”. In 1950 he made a series of history paintings for the council hall of the municipality of Cava dei Tirreni. In Salerno, in 1970, a year before his death, he was organized
a great anthological in the Salone dei Marmi del Municipio.
Several of his works are preserved at the Vatican Museums, in the City Hall of Cava dei Tirreni, in the Palazzo dei Crociati in Milan. A
St. Matthew created by Clement Tafuri in 1936, was donated by the city of Salerno for the taking of Ethiopia and today is located in the cathedral of Addis Ababa.
