Suzzara Prize
It was commissioned by the mayor of Suzzara, Tebe Mignoni. It was born thanks to Dino Villani, with the contribution of Cesare Zavattini and the support of Stefano Cairola; it was inaugurated on 22 August 1948. Villani and Zavattini thought of the competition as a symbolic exchange between cultural work and peasant work: the winning artists received products of the earth and in exchange they gave their works to the municipal collection. The intent of the promoters of the award was to encourage the encounter between the people and the artists, the latter often perceived as unattainable and unrelated to the daily feeling of ordinary people. Consequently, the jury, alongside authoritative figures (such as Orio Vergani, Alfonso Gatto, Raffaele Carrieri and Raffaele De Grada junior ), provided for the presence of a worker, an employee and a farmer.