Guido Modiano, a typographer and designer active in Milan between the 1920s and 1930s, played a significant role in the development of Italian graphic language through thecontamination between typography and abstract art. A printer by training, Modiano revealed from a young age a curious and eclectic personality, fuelled by friendship and collaboration with Edoardo Persico in the editorial office of «Casabella», where he experimented with graphic solutions determined not only by practical needs but also by aesthetic and theoretical reasons, choises e reiterated throughout the 1930s in numerous contributions published in major industry journals (from «Campo Grafico» to «Graphicus», from «Il risorgimento Grafico» to «L’industria della stampa»). From his earliest writings, dated 1929, Modiano argued the positive contribution of abstract art and rationalist architecture in the evolution of Italian graphic-advertising language, later realized in the publication of «tipografia», a magazine edited on behalf of the reggiani Foundry, as well as in numerous editorial products created over the decade. the culmination of his relentless effort in promoting the modernism in Italian typography was his curatorship of the Graphic Art Exhibition at the 7th triennale of Milan and the lengthy debate, Dieci anni di polemica modernista, published in installments in «L’industria della stampa» between 1941 and 1942.
Alberto Magnelli’s life was marked by a constant desire: to be recognised by the Italian cultural scene for his fundamental role in the history of non-figurative art in Italy and for his importance on an international level. Despite his status as a forerunner and his influence on the artistic movements of his time, Magnelli’s role was not well received in Italy. the extremes of the historical research are two exhibitions held in Lombardy: the Mostra di pittura moderna italiana in Como, 1936 and Aspetti del primo astrattismo italiano 1930-1940 in Monza, 1969 curated by Luciano Caramel. Alberto Magnelli’s role in the emergence of Abstractionism in Italy was not fully understood: in the numerous exhibitions during the years under study he has been presented either as a mere forerunner of an abstraction that was not yet mature, or as the protagonist of an artistic season outside the Italian borders, and therefore not recognised as a master in the formation of artistic culture in his homeland. the aim of this article is to trace both the most important exhibitions of Magnelli’s career in association with Italian and international exponents of Abstractionism and the dualism of interpretations of his art that were made until his death.
The contribution of the bronzini workshop’s textile activity is varied, distinct and at the same time intertwined between a production for design and one for art. From Gegia bronzini’s early experiments in high craft weaving in the 1930s to the Fiber Art of her daughter Marisa, the article reconstructs and investigates the activity and artistic research of two women who distinguished themselves both as innovative entrepreneurs and as experimental creatives. through consultation of the family archives, testimonies and bibliographical documents, it traces the origins of their first textile workshop and its evolution in relation to the main art and design exhibitions, highlighting their contribution to textile processing, but also to abstraction research in the field of textiles. Abstraction, in fact, is the stylistic choice that distinguished them both in the creation of textiles in their workshop and in the realisation of textile artworks. In analysing the contribution of weaving to abstract research, both sides of their activity, which has its roots in the historical abstraction research of the 1930s, were explored.
Consultation of the materials preserved at the Franco Albini Foundation (Milan), allows as to analyzes the vast and complex work of Franca Helg (1920-1989), Franco Albini’s historical professional partner since the 1950s. Helg works in the field of architecture, urban planning, design and museography, alongside Albini in a fully collaborative relationship between equals. this article will analyze Helg’s work in the field of exhibition design and investigates his sensitivity towards art in this case abstract, in particular, through the study of the fundamental exhibition Abstract and Concrete Art, set up in the Salone delle Cariatidi of Palazzo reale in Milan in 1947. the authors delve into Helg’s contribution, the design solutions undertaken, the methods chosen to enhance the works on display and the influence of this exhibition on other installations.
Although it does not represent the debut of Nino Di Salvatore as a theorist (in 1951 and 1952 he already wrote and published his two first short essays), the core of texts that he elaborated between 1971 and 1991 and that took the title of Teoria dello Spazio can be considered one of the most complete and mature examples of his aesthetic and formal reflection. In Teoria dello Spazio Di Salvatore formulated his own view about a new way for abstractionism, bringing organically together the innovative idea of abstractionism shared with the Italian MAC group and principles ofGestaltpsychologie. the Teoria dello Spazio represents a synthesis of issues and questions that he also as a painter resolved, demonstrating how the operational and theoretical level are in his activity intrinsically connected and always necessary to each other.
The period that Luigi Veronesi went through between the 1955 and 1965 was not so much explored in his historical and critical context so far. In these years his painting moved away from the characteristics of the rationalist abstractionism that informed his work in the second half of the 1930s. the evolution towards open forms, of “organicist” inspiration, is similar to the experiments he carried out in the photographic field during the 1930s and again after the Second World War. these correspondences do not exclude relationships with informal motifs, which are however absorbed within the tension towards the structuring of the image. the considerations here carried out introduce the problem of the relationships between “non-figurative” and “informel” art, and between naturalistic suggestions and forms of abstraction that cannot be traced back to rigid models, a theme that Veronesi represents in his way of accompanying the investigation of form to the understanding of its structural reasons, resolved in a rigorous but also lyrical vision.
The work of artist and architect Ugo La Pietra in the second half of the 1960s is focused on the contacts between architectonical and urban research and the abstract use of plastic materials. Following ideas he developed as an assistant professor at the Milan Polytechnic, it is possible to trace the development of his work from an abstract “signic” painting to the use of an analogous language as a “reading” of a urban form. this reflection on the relationship between sign and field stays consistent in his “objectual” paintings in transparent methacrylate (Strutturazioni tissurali, 1966). the following step in his research is the use of the same materials and principles for architectural projects (Altre Cose shop, 1967, in Milan) and meta-architectural immersive spaces (Self-service audiovisivo, 1968 and Audio-Visual Environment, 1969). At the turn of the decade the artist gradually sets aside abstract forms and plastic materials in his more critically oriented research, without abandoning them in his painting practice.
The year 1970 marks the beginning of Agostino Ferrari’s research on color and its emotional implications. Each phase of his work is paralleled with a series of writings, both an inherent part of the artistic process and a precious testimony of the theoretical path that brought to the creation of the 1975 large-scale installation Self-portrait, the culmination and recapitulation of a five-year-long inquiry. Ferrari thoroughly analyzes the issues regarding the theory of colors, focusing on the relationship between shape and color, and between these formal elements and sign. His work on the optical-visual perception of color, its relationship with shapes and its psychological-emotional value is inevitably based on a series of previous experiences, particularly those of abstract artists throughout the 20th century. Still, Ferrari’s individual contribution to the discourse on such matters is his definition of color as a “vitamin” able to fulfill a temporary need brought forward by a given state of mind. though aware and rigorous, his research provides new elements of knowledge, and opens up new lines of inquiry. Alphabet, a series of six works, summarizes the output of the discoveries on sign, shape and color surrounding the Self-portrait.
The article analyzes a few examples of abstract sculpture in Milan in the early 1970s, in which the choice of typically industrial materials (such as plexiglas, glass, stainless steel, etc.) constitutes both a response to similar instances in international art, and a challenge to the typical “presence” of traditional sculpture: the sculptural form is dissolved in the surrounding space, turning the artwork into a device for the perception of its environment, instead of focusing on the centrality of the piece. While these lines of inquiry (the cases of Amalia Del Ponte, Nanda Vigo, and Giancarlo Marchese will be examined) are fully integrated in the ongoing process of crisis and redefinition of sculpture as an artistic medium, they also address the question of the “synthesis of the arts” and the opening towards the field of design – a vastly debated issue in the Milan cultural context of the time: the answer given by these works foregrounds a few recurrent categories in international art criticism, such as the “theatrical” and the “baroque”, adopting them in very individual terms.
The work of the Italian-turkish artist betty Danon (Istanbul, 1927 - Milan 2002) is characterized by a common denominator in the different stages of her production: in fact, Danon started from an abstract lexicon in her acrylics and collages and then continued in this direction, taking the detachment from the referential datum to an extreme even in her later verbovisual production. Abstraction is a constant: if her musical scores are abstract, for her the act of writing is an overcoming of the visible and thus of figuration. A gradual detachment, starting from personal inwardness to arrive at a spiritual elevation, sought and proclaimed since her Dichiarazione di poetica (1972), where the ultimate goal is the “rarefaction of image-matter”, towards a “spiritual-cosmic communication”, in her own words. It was possible to deepen the Danon’s research in the field of abstraction, in the light of the new materials that have emerged thanks to the artist’s archives made available by her heirs, the Archivio del ’900 of the Mart Museum in Rovereto, and the archives of the Galleria Milano, where the artist had a solo exhibition in 1977 and a retrospective in 2021.
The discovery of two paintings already attributed to Giovan Battista Moroni in a Bergamasque private collection offers the opportunity to ascrib them to his pupil Giovan Paolo Lolmo, in his youth years (about 1570-1575), until now not well known. Saint Peter and Saint Paul show the influence of Moroni’s devotional style, but there are some elements like acid colours and mostly Paul’s figure (with her pointined physiognomic details) that already anticipate Lolmo’s accomplished style.
This contribution identifies the brescian artist Andrea torresani (c. 1695-1728) as the inventor of an etching by bartolomeo Gazalis preserved in the Gabinetto delle Stampe Angelo Davoli of the biblioteca Panizzi in Reggio Emilia. the etching is interesting both for its subject, as it is one of the oldest Italian depictions of the theatrical character of Pierrot, and in reference to torresani’s artistic production. In fact, it allows us to add a new work to the catalogue of an artist who was highly esteemed during his lifetime but of whom we know little today: in particular it is a work referable to his fortunate Milanese period, circumscribable between the end of the 1710s and the first years of the following decade. the analysis of the rediscovered Pierrot becomes an opportunity to bring order to torresani’s artistic career and to try to give a more precise chronological collocation to some of the artist’s drawings preserved in the Drawings department of the Castello Sforzesco in Milan and at the Accademia Carrara in bergamo.
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