1948

Exhibits, as a member of the Fronte Nuovo delle Arti, five works at the XXIVth Venice Biennale, the first of the postwar period.
In the autumn exhibits at the "Prima mostra nazionale d'arte contemporanea" in Bologna, mounted by the “Alleanza per la Difesa della Cultura”: “… I got into a public debate with Guttuso at the Palazzo Re Enzo. I immediately had the feeling that we were really speaking different languages. So much was obvious from the sharp contrast between our pictures hanging there, yet we both had the same membership card in our pockets. A clash was inevitable. Then Togliatti published my painting Uragano (Jesi Collection) upside down in Rinascita, with a sermon about unacceptable art.”*
Quits Venice in a state of crisis with the Irish Haya Murray, whom he had fallen in love with, retreating to an isolated chalet at Auronzo. There he spent a hard winter immersed in work and study, and fell ill with scurvy.

* Emilio Vedova, Pagine di diario, Galleria blu Editrice, Milano, 1961