Ennio Guardi May 2026

I. Who Was Ennio Guardi? Ennio Guardi was an Italian painter born in the working-class district of Cannaregio, Venice. He is often called “the ghost of Venetian modernism” because he spent most of his career in obscurity, working as a restorer in the church of San Zaccaria. He was the great-grand-nephew of the more famous 18th-century view-painter Francesco Guardi—a connection he reportedly resented, as it raised expectations he never fulfilled in his lifetime.