Honorable Mention

In January 2021 Guglielmo received an HM Award for his drawings of Treviso “San Parisio Square” from the Art Room Art Gallery.

Theme of the International Award: “Black & White”

Guglielmo was invited to collaborate in the creation of this new city guide by contributing with a couple of his drawings: one depicting the Palazzo dei Trecento, for the cover and the second that "narrates" one of the most epic and curious episodes that have brought to the rescue of the town hall, severely damaged by the allied bombing of 7 April 1944 and destined to be torn down by the German command which feared further damage to property and person given the crumbling walls.

The publisher has reserved a presentation page for the artist, at the end of the work.

Deeply attached to his native city, Guglielmo took care over the years a vast production of iconographic Treviso using the ancient technique of china ink. Graduated in Architecture in 1993, he never abandoned his passion and draws alongside his professional activity.

He started using the ink pen just at six years old and continues today. Son of Memi, well known and appreciated restorer of frescos and Lyù, good American painter, both graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts of Venice, Guglielmo has inherited a great gift from his parents.

This important project took some years to be ready for editing. Guglielmo represented both side of the “Calmaggiore” of Treviso in a unique view. No one tryed to realize this hard work before and now you can have a complete sight of the half chilometer of the main street of the medieval city. Beginning from the imponent Dom, you can virtually walk in the heart of Treviso until Piazza dei Signori with the municipal tower and magnificent Palazzo dei 300. Guglielmo has made hundreds of sketches of the elevations of the building, reproducing every detail of cornices, columns, arches and decorations that adorn the beautiful medieval and renaissence houses of his city.

The drawing has a scale of 1:200 and is composed of 4 boards collected in an elegant folder. Each side of the Calmaggiore is 2 meters long.

The work was presented to the public and the press on December 12, 2007, at the Museum of Santa Caterina, by Prof. Eugenio Manzato, former Director of the Civic Museums of Treviso.

At the end of 1980 Treviso enters the history of Italian philately thanks to a stamp, which represent, in a line drawing, a corner of Piazza Pola. The author is a young fourteen, winner of the first prize in a hard and crowded competition (350,000 participants) organized to celebrate the XXII Stamp Day: his name is Guglielmo Botter and he is not an ordinary boy. He belongs in fact to a dynasty of famous restorers that has seen three generations - Girolamo, Mario and Memi - make themselves useful to Treviso with their work, especially saving and taking care of the preservation of the precious frescoes; also documenting through accurate and valuable drawings these wall decorations, especially Mario who gave also fine publications. And it is this documentary vein and passion for the aspects of the city that seems to be heir to the young Guglielmo. His vocation is very early, since at the age of eleven years he has the honor of a solo exhibition - "40 drawings in pen tip of an eleven year old boy" - presented by Bepi Mazzotti, and it is thanks to the practice of portraying in pen drawings aspects of the city that he was able to draw from memory, in Rome "behind closed doors" in a room of the Printing Office, the sketch for the stamp. The event is celebrated in Treviso with an exhibition at the Museum "Bailo" in which, among to the beautiful anthology of drawings of William, are exposed, to a witness to the family tradition, some designs of great-grandfather Girolamo, grandfather Mario, Dad Memi ...

At a distance of twenty-seven years since that event, and thirty years after the first exposure, William returns to the public with a historic feat: the relief of the elevations of the facades of Calmaggiore along both sides of the street.

He has, since completed his studies and graduated in architecture, devoted to the profession, but has never stopped cultivating design. Among the many experiences that dot the years - collaboration with the technical office of his group during the military service, the illustration of books, posters for the VW Beetle Historic Club - two experiences prelude to this last: the reliefs of the Loggia dei Cavalieri (the Knights’ Loggia), performed as support to a project for the restoration by his father Memi in 1991-92, published in 2000, and the perspective view of the city of Treviso realized in 1997. Is clarified with this work a precise method and style of Guglielmo Botter, who grafted on measurements and precise calculations his sentitive and creative sign: his Calmaggiore therefore combines the precison of relief to a lyrical and sentimental “representation”of the prospectus of the buildings. Completely right scale relationships between buildings and between different parts of each building - also note the height profiles of the soil - are vividly rendered in vibrant graphics of the roofs and ashlar, in light shading of the overhangs, in the description of details such as shutters, balustrades and flower vases that decorate pergolas and sills (but there is also a roof garden!): the ability to embrace in a single view the two long tables offers an unprecedented synthesis of the most famous and popular street in Treviso, since that the direct vision allows only partial glimpses. In truth the “Trevisans” are habit to enjoy the Calmaggiore walking under the arcades, and are therefore more accustomed to look at the variable arches and at the changing ceiling heights and know better pictures painted on these walls and on vaults of the arcades - some have called this walk "the way of Madonnas "because of the richness and variety of sacred representations - much better than the architecture of the facades and the now rarefied mural paintings: to enjoy it you must look out of the edge of the porches or down in the street, and turn, not without some difficulty being the narrow space, head held high. Therefore welcome to the art work of Guglielmo to give us knowledge about the alignment of plans and roofs, roof terraces (altane), the presence of which is invisible from the street; to note the existence of several "Lotti gotici" witnessed by the narrow measure of the facades and at the same time to understand as "nineteenth century style" has badly modified (flattened?) poetics asymmetries of Gothic and Renaissance buildings: proving that it is preferable a bold modern architecture than the ironed and clumsy “reconstructions style”.

Eugenio Manzato

former Director of Civic Museums in Treviso

This map of Treviso, designed for tourism, had to be edited a couple of years before. The desire to involve the town of Treviso in the final version has meant thet the printing was delayed until February of 2011. The Department of Tourism had been demonstrated interest in promoting this initiative, but the time required for the successful completion of the project widened to such an extent that, in the meantime, the father of Guglielmo, author of the brief history of treviso, which accompanies the graphic, died without seeing the finished work.

A similar map, entirely hand drawn, was missing for a long time in Treviso. This new Artistic Map can satisfy the more educated and demanding tourists who have the pleasure to bring home a nice souvenir of the medieval city of Treviso: the added value of this map is located on the back with a reproduction of a bird’s eye view of the city designed back in 1997; the tourist, having finished the city tour, has the advantage of bringing with it a overview of the entire old town encolsed by medieval walls. This map is also translated into German, English and French.

Special Recognition

In March 2015 Guglielmo participates for the first time in the “Cityscape” Annual International Competition promoted by Light Space & Time On-line Gallery, obtaining a flattering recognition for the Treviso drawing: “Ponte San Martino”

The exhibition created inside the Salone del Palazzo dei Trecento, by the Municipality of Treviso, is a dutiful tribute to the three generations of fresco restorers, represented by Girolamo, Mario and Memi, who have dedicated their lives over the course of a century to the care, protection, restoration and enhancement of the artistic heritage of their city. To them is added Guglielmo, who, despite having taken a different path from his ancestors, becoming an architect, with his ink drawings continued the family work in the field of art, contributing to enrich the iconographic heritage of Treviso, to starting with the creation of that Piazza Pola postage stamp which to this day is the only stamped value of the Italian Republic dedicated to the capital of the Marca. A section of the exhibition was dedicated to the artist's most recent works, those drawings that portray American cities in the first place, but also German, Czech and Italian cities, made in the last 10 years. Documents now to be considered "historical" of William's first exhibitions, his most important victories and period articles were also presented to the public.

The work was commissioned in 2015 by the Parish on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the opening of the “Bricito kindergarten”. The entire parish has been reproduced from a bird’s eye view and includes the ancient portion within the city wall, where the church of the same name is located, and the more recent one which is organized around Viale Montegramma, in a westerly direction.

The monumental and architectural landmarks found within the parish itself are also represented. The work required a stusy and a redesign that occupied the artist for a long month.

Juried show at the MIIT, Turin

At the end of 2016 Guglielmo partecipates in a national selection for a collective exhibition entitled “Torino: European capital of tourism 2017”.

The drawing “Ponte di San Martino” is selected together with a glimpse of Pittsburgh, his second city.

The exhibition takes place at the International Museum of Italia Arte in Turin, from 25 January to 11 February. A paper catalog collects all the works selected by critic Dr. Guido Folco.

Selected

In May 2021 the drawing of Treviso, “Piazza San Parisio”, is reported among the 93 works selected for the online exhibition of the collective “Black & White”, curated by the Cultural Center of Cape Code, Yarmouyh, MA.

Guglielmo Botter:

Congratulations! Your work has been selected to be part of our online exhibit, Black and White. We received 812 entries from all over the world.

The selected images are now on our website, https://www.cultural-center.org/blackandwhite-intro

If you have provided us with your website, thank you. If not, please feel free to contact me by email aneill@cultural-center.org , we would be happy to create a direct link to your site.

On behalf of the Cultural Center of Cape Cod, thank you again for allowing us to consider your work for the online exhibition. We wish you continuing success in your artistic endeavors.

Sincerely,

Amy Neill

Director of Education

Finalist

In February 2021 the drawings of Treviso “San Parisio Square” was reported finalist and accepted for the online exhibition from Fusion Art, Palm Spring - CA.

The theme of the international compwetition was “Black & White”.

“We once again received a diverse collection of quality artwork from artists all around the world, including the US, Canada, United Kingdom, Australia, Germany, India, Ireland, Italy, Russia; France, Indonesia, Japan, Kuwait and Romania. Overall, the gallery judged 499 entries and accepted 179 artworks into the exhibition, which will be featured on the website for the month of Februart 2021...”

Opening of my own art gallery in Treviso

On my birthday, June 27th, I officially opened my own art gallery in downtown Treviso. Here I am going to exhibit all my art production about my city, a chance for people and visitors to find an artistic souvenir that they can’t find in any other local shops and stores. Starting from the artistic map of Treviso, useful to visit our beautiful town, to the “bird eye view of Treviso” printed in 1997, to the prospects of Calmaggiore, a set of 4 sheets with all the historic buildings starting from the Dom down to the City Hall and Piazza dei Signori. Sets of postcards, cards with envelopes, calendars, bags, and more stuff with my design are waiting for you... Welcome to Treviso!