Fame for Fausto

Fausto Pirandello was in his ambitious teens when his famous playwright father counseled him to leave writing to others. "Express yourself some other way," said Luigi (Six Characters in Search of an Author) Pirandello. Young Fausto decided to be an artist, and last week, as Painter Pirandello, he was bringing fresh fame to the family name. At Rome's big Quadrien-nale Exposition, his group of nine expressionistic canvases won him the first prize of 1,000,000 lire (about $1,600) and further recognition as one of Italy's top-ranking painters.

Unlike many good artists, Pirandello never had to worry about money, but even so, he had trouble getting started. He dabbled in strictly formal portraits of his family and friends, took a brief fling at cubism in Paris, then went back home to find a style of his own. The Fascists, with their ideas of snapshot art, slowed him down. ("The fashionable thing to do was to paint life from a purely realistic point of view. It was difficult to escape the trend.") It was only after the war that Pirandello began finding the form that won him last week's exposition prize.

He sees it as something of a happy medium between Fascist realism and "the form which cubism had diffused to the point of meaninglessness." He calls his style "realistic idealism," goes in for lush figures, both clothed and nude, done in thick, vivid colors.

Pirandello may never quite reach his father's stature in his chosen field, but no one can call him a slouch. His paintings now sell for from $300 to $600 apiece, and Rome's art critics treat him with respect. Wrote // Tempo's Virgilio Guzzu "He has a personal impact of his own . . . You may accept or refuse the painter Pirandello . . . but you cannot . . . ignore him."

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