Italian Abstraction

1910 - 1960

Estorick Collection of Modern Italian Art, London

28 June - 24 September 2006

Abstraction first emerged in Italian art around 1910, when painters belonging to the Futurist school began developing their studies of light and motion in bold new directions, depicting ‘the essential force lines of speed’ as brightly-coloured arcs and thrusting, jagged forms.

During the 1920s abstraction reflected the wider European shift from geometric to organic (or biomorphic) imagery and the influence of schools such as Purism, De Stijl, Constructivism, Surrealism and the Bauhaus.

However, the following decade saw the flowering of an identifiably national style, distinguished by a classical rigour and discipline strongly informed by the clean lines of Italian Rationalist architecture.

Paradoxically, another defining trait was that of Italian art’s resistance to dogmatic formulas and belief in free experimentation – the vivacity and playfulness of Osvaldo Licini and Bruno Munari’s work epitomising this quality.

Geometric forms continued to dominate Italian abstraction until the late 1950s, when the emergence of Informal Art led to an emphasis on gestural brushwork and greater expressivity.

Encompassing five decades, this tantalising survey provides an overview of the various tendencies and developments within Italian abstraction during its formative years.

It includes some sixty works by a number of high-profile artists, as well as by some perhaps less familiar.

Works by Afro, Balla, Boccioni, Burri, Capogrossi, Colla, Fontana, Licini, Magnelli, Melotti, Munari, Prampolini and Vedova will be on display.

Italian Abstraction 1940-1960
Italian Cultural Institute
29 June – 1 September 2006

In conjunction with the exhibition at the Estorick Collection, a selection of abstract works from the 1940s to the 1960s will be shown at the Italian Cultural Institute.

This will include drawings, mixed media, oils and watercolours by Afro, Balla, Burri, Capogrossi, Fontana, Marinetti, Perilli, Reggiani and Soldati.

ACHILLE PERILLI - Lay Forms, 1948

ENRICO PRAMPOLINI - Encounter with matter, 1930

GIUSEPPE CAPOGROSSI - Surface, 1949

BICE LAZZARI - Composition, 1947

AFRO - The man form Lousiana, 1951

EILIO VEDOVA - Unquiet spaces, 1954

Info Mostra
Italian Abstraction 1910 - 1960

Estorick Collection of Modern Italian Art
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