A significant recognition
The honor of "Gentleman Hunter". With this significant acknowledgment, the Federation wanted to underline the commitment, passion and deep love for the environment and for hunting, its traditions and its highest values testified by Claudio Menapace's actions. Menapace was born in Alto Adige, of Trentino origins, in the Alta Val di Non. Where the mountains drop sheer into the Adige valley and a rustic people expertly cultivate the fruity slopes. People and mountains that have always been in Claudio's heart to then transpire in the watermark of the soul of his paintings. A successful entrepreneur from Bolzano in the construction field, a gentleman with a jovial but aristocratic smile, with deliberately composed but devoid of formality, he began to paint in the early XNUMXs, prompted by his wife Cristina, who had sensed his talent.
Always a hunter
And the canvases immediately come alive with his loves: the rocky peaks, the woods, the pastures and the snow of the Alpine mountain landscapes. But above all of the many animals that populate them and that he, a lifelong hunter, knows well in their most hidden ethological aspects. His is a real but evocative painting, precise in the details without ever being photographic, always capable of giving you a flutter to the heart: the emotion of a woodcock that suddenly flies in flight, the magical appearance of the roe deer in the thick of the wood, the chase of chamois males at Brumft, the fight of black grouses. Only the expert eye of the hunter, who has lived the immortalized experiences, who knows wild animals and their lives, can describe these hidden and sublime moments that Nature can offer us so well. And Menapace has given us these emotions in all these years, making us dream within a frame.
The works of Menapace
His works are known throughout the Alps, both on this side and beyond the ridge, but also in more distant countries. Multifaceted in techniques, he ranges from charcoal to watercolor, from colored pencils to oil, above all. We owe him the rediscovery of the Scheiben, the ancient painted wooden discs of the Tyrolean tradition, which now make their mark in every hunting parlor even in distant and different environments from their original one. One of his Scheiben was donated to Pope John Paul II by the Italian hunting world on the occasion of the Jubilee year. He has exhibited in many exhibitions, both in Italy and abroad and received many awards in his now long artistic career. Of absolute prestige, among the many, the "Prix Artistique" international prize awarded to him in 1991 in Montreal, Canada, by the "CIC - Conseil International de la Chasse" (International Hunting Council) and the "Medal of Merit ” of the Land Tyrol for artistic merits, the “Verdienstmedaille”.
The world of animals
The works of Claudio Menapace open many windows to the world of animals that know how to make our hearts vibrate as hunters and nature lovers, but with their general undisputed appreciation they have also helped us to climb a step on the long ladder of understanding, if not of sharing, of our role and our passion by the people. That of "Gentleman Hunter" is the highest honor that the Federcaccia provides for those who have brought prestige to hunting in their professional or sporting life and contributed to the affirmation and elevation of the noblest principles of hunting ethics. Since its establishment in 1991, among others, personalities such as Mario Rigoni Stern, Pier Luigi Vigna, Augusto Bocchini, Indro Montanelli, Paolo Bedoni, Fausto Coppi, Nevio Scala, Giuliano Incerpi, Bruno Modugno and Ugo Gussalli Beretta have received this recognition ( Italian Hunting Federation Press Office).