Giacomo Balla, Umberto Boccioni
works on paper
25.04.2015 - 18.07.2015
Introduction
The two protagonists of Italian Futurism are the authors of a selection of works on paper, chosen to document the time anticipating the research on the decomposition of light and the dynamism of moving figures, iconic of the movement born officially in February 1909. From the etchings by Boccioni portraying his mother in an interior or an athlete ready to run, to the small-sized works with crayons where we catch Balla’s glance on a luxuriant nature, the exhibition path offers a panoramic on one of the most vital season of 20th-century Italian art.
Artists
Born in Turin in 1871, in 1900 he lived in Paris and Rome; here he frequented Severini and Boccioni. In 1910 he signed the Manifesto dei pittori futuristi (Manifesto of Futurist Painters) and the Manifesto tecnico della pittura futurista (Technical Manifesto of Futurist Painting). His studies on light known as Compenetrazioni iridescenti (Iridescent Compenetrations) were realized in this period. He took part in the Futurist exhibitions until 1937.
Among the main exponents of Italian futurism, after a divisionist phase shared with friends Balla and Severini met in Rome around 1899, in 1909 Umberto Boccioni was in Paris where he met Marinetti. In 1910 he signed the Manifesto tecnico della pittura futurista (Technical Manifesto of Futurist painting) and in 1912 the one of the Futurist sculpture. The works realized in this period aim to render the interpenetration of forms moving in space in painting and sculpture.
