One of the greatest modern painters from the Tortonas area is Giuseppe Pellizza da Volpedo. Pelizza was a student of the Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera in Milan, where his painting “The Living Stream” is on display in the associated art gallery Brera. As a representative of Italian realism, he mainly painted socially interesting subjects. His most famous work “Il quarto Stato” was created in his studio in Volpedo between 1898 and 1901. It is exhibited in the ‘900 Museum opened in 2010 in Milan. After the early death of his wife, the artist committed suicide at the age of 39.
His paintings can be seen in the Museum in Volpedo, the house where Pellizzas was born, in the Didactic Museum in Volpedo in Palazzo del Trehlio at piazza Quarto Stato 1, in Tortona in the medieval Palzzetto next to the Duomo and in the Pinacoteca Brera Milan. Besides, his paintings are in every Italian school book of history.
Easels are set up in the hills around Volpedo and Monleale in order to understand the paths of the master.