Alberto Magnelli Italian, 1888-1971
Alberto Magnelli was an italian painter, first influenced by the italian futurists, he devellopped his own language of painting while living amongst the French avant-garde in Paris.
Born in Florence, Alberto Magnelli began painting at an early age at the encouragment of a family friend and decided to become a profesionnal painter without any academical training. In 1911 he sold one of his first pictures at the Venice Biennale.
In 1914 he joined the circle of painters and writers connected with the Florentine art magazine Lacerba, and came in contact with the Futurist Gino Severini and the influent writer and art critic Ardengo Soffici. During a stay in Paris from February to June 1914, Magnelli met Guillaume Apollinaire, Max Jacob, Alenxander Archipenko, Fernand Léger and Pablo Picasso.
While keeping in touch with the avantgarde milieux of Italian art, he pursued an independent line of research leading toward complete abstraction.
In 1918 he started painting the Lyrical Explosions, prefiguring what was later called "tachisme". Then in 1920, reverting to figurative art, he produced some highly simplified, architecturally ordered compositions.
In 1931 Magnelli settled in Paris and, in 1932, he painted a series of pictures called "Stones", inspired by the marble quarries of Carrara. By 1935 he had achieved a thoroughly abstract style based on "invented figuration" and from 1937 he pushed further and further along the path of complete abstraction.
Magnelli was awarded second prize at the 1951 Sao Paulo Biennial and exhibited at the Venice Biennale of 1954. He held multiple solo exhibition in famous galleries and intistutions in Europe in the 1950's (Paris, Brussels, Antibes, Eindhoven, etc.). Magnelli also took part in the exhibition of Artistes du XXe Siècle, Liège (1958), Documenta II, Kassel (1959) and the Venice Biennale (1954 and 1960).
