Exhibition
Massimo Campigli
22.11.1980 — 06.01.1981
Massimo Campigli
Mostra antologica. Opere ad olio, disegni, grafica dal 1921 al 1971
Show introduction
On November 22, 1980 Galleria dello Scudo presented the work by Massimo Campigli in an anthological exhibition organized with the collaboration of the artist’s son, Nicola. The show brought together a selection of over fifty works from public and private collections, chosen among the most famous and representative of Campigli’s whole creative path.
Le amiche (1921), Donna alla fontana and La scuola (1929), Bastimento carico di donne (1936) and Le danzatrici (1939), large canvases from the 1940s such as Donne con ombrellino (1940), Teatro and Donne variopinte (1943), alongside the contemporary Concerto from Museo “Mario Rimoldi” in Cortina d'Ampezzo and the portrait of his wife Giuditta (1944), are moments of a journey that unravels through the typical subjects of the artist, linked to a female archetype that seems to come from an ancient fresco. The show is completed by canvases from the 1950s, like Labirinto di specchi (1957), and by the large compositions of the following decade, where the figure is rendered with an extreme geometrizing and totemic stylization, once again created with a unique technical skill.
The catalogue published for the occasion offers a touching recollection of the artist written by his son, a text by Campigli himself, and critical interventions by Guido Perocco and Marco Valsecchi.
Installation view
Artist
Max Ihlenfeld, later known as Massimo Campigli, was born in Berlin in 1895. After having spent his childhood in Florence, in 1909 he moved with his family to Milan, where he came into contact with Futurist groups. In the first youth he manifests literary rather than pictorial propensities; a paper of his, entitled “Giornale + Strada. Parole in libertà” was published in Lacerba in 1914. During thr first World War he felt prisoner and was deported to Hungary. In 1919 he was sent to Paris as a correspondent of the Corriere della Sera and here he began his artistic career; in the first hard years spent in the France, Campigli alternates the profession of journalist with that of painter.
