PROPERTY FROM A PRIVATE COLLECTION, ITALY






ALBERTO MAGNELLI (1888-1971)


Apertura di piani + cestello signed and dated 'Magnelli 15' (lower right)oil and gouache on board62.7 x 44.7cm (24 11/16 x 17 5/8in).Painted in 1915
|The work was used to illustrate a lecture by Alberto Viviani, futurist poet and writer, held on 6 June 1939 in Turin.The authenticity of this work has kindly been confirmed by Madame Anne Maisonnier. ProvenanceAlberto Viviani Collection, Italy (acquired directly from the artist).Thence by descent to the present owner.ExhibitedFlorence, Piccolo Mondo, Esposizione d'arte, 10 temi - tradizione e arte nuova, April 1920.Rome, Galleria Bragaglia Fuori Commercio, Galleria (dipinti in visione), after 1932.Florence, Studio A. Viviani, Il futurismo ha mezzo secolo, December 1959 - January 1960.Milan, Centro d'Arte "Cultura e Costume", Testimonianze del Futurismo, February 1976 (also travelled to Florence).Milan, Centro d'Arte "Cultura e Costume", Gli Altri Del Futurismo, 40 artisti scelti nel vasto mare del Movimento al di là dei cinque firmatari del primo Manifesto della pittura, 8 May - 12 June 1997.LiteratureP. Perrone Burali d'Arezzo, Il secolo Futurista, Milan, 2001 (illustrated p. 150).A. Viviani & P. Perrone Burali d'Arezzo, Giubbe Rosse, il caffè della rivoluzione culturale nella Firenze 1913 - 1915, Milan, 2007, p. 289 (illustrated p. 43).'I think that a certain amount of colour, not on its own but next to others, glows and shines as if it were breaking up in a divisionist sense. Therefore the coldness that can appear is only valuable if it is separated' - Alberto Magnelli, letter to Ardegno Soffici, 17 January 1917 Alberto Magnelli stands apart as a figure in modern Italian art, and his early inventions such as those depicted in Apertura di piani + cestello from 1915 remain entirely his own. Born into an affluent Florentine family in 1888, Magnelli grew up surrounded by the legacy of the Italian Renaissance but came of age during a moment of artistic revolution. He was approached by the writer and thinker Filippo Tommaso Marinetti in 1911, who asked Magnelli to join the Futurist group that he had assembled in the cafes of Florence and Milan just two years before. He declined the invitation, preferring to continue along his own path, but in 1913 Magnelli made repeated visits to the Futurist exhibition organised by the Lacerba magazine at the Libreria Gonnelli. Until this point Magnelli - who was entirely self-taught - had looked primarily for inspiration in the Florentine masters of fresco secco, such as Paolo Uccello and Piero della Francesca. Subsequently Gustav Klimt's flattened realism and eye for pattern had influenced the young Florentine, following his exposure to the Austrian master's work at the Venice Biennale in 1910. But it was this crucial exposure to the work of Boccioni, Carrà, Russolo, Soffici et al. that informed Magnelli's art in a significant way. Evidently impressed by the liberated modernity he saw at the Gonnelli, Magnelli even purchased Carrà's La galleria di Milano for his uncle, the collector, Alessandro Magnelli. In his works from this time, the influence of Futurism became coupled with the ideas and visual experiments happening in Paris, which Magnelli followed as closely as he could through publications such as Apollinaire's Les Peintres cubistes and Du Cubisme published by Gleizes and Metzinger. When the opportunity came to travel to Paris alongside the poet Aldo Palazzeschi in 1914, Magnelli did not hesitate: 'I met the painter Alberto Magnelli, whom I had known since childhood... ''I am going to Paris. My train is today at 3pm.''... Magnelli looked at me right in the eyes, all beaming, and speaking with resolution: ''I am coming too'' (Aldo Palazzeschi quoted in Magnelli, exh. cat., Paris, 1989, p. 174). Paris in 1914 was a hotbed of philosophical and artistic ideas, the like of which Magnelli had never experienced. There he met many of the protagonists of the day: Picasso, Gris, Archipenko and Apollinaire, who introduced him to Henri Matisse. Matisse's fauve pieces would, perhaps, have the greatest impact on Magnelli, who combined this striking use of pure colour with the visual cues of Futurism and Cubism to create his own unique visual language. Although he only spent six weeks in Paris, Magnelli returned to Florence with a new verve and multiple sources of inspiration. Whether it was Matisse's unbridled colour, Picasso's spatial development, the Delaunay's theoretical displays or De Chirico's poetic otherness, Magnelli brought together many of the various strands of Modernism and began his most intense period of creativity. The present work encompasses this achievement of combining many of the developments he encountered in Paris within an entirely unique interpretation, creating pieces such as Apertura di piani + cestello which are immediately identifiable as coming from Magnelli's hand. This work began conception in 1914, the year of his Paris trip, in the form of a watercolour study. Magnelli then went on to further explore the composition in this large oil and gouache, finalising it in the early months of the following year. Still lifes became a focal point of Magnelli's work during this time, where he often used the simple shapes of everyday objects such as carafes of wine, coffee pots or a basket, as seen in the present work. These emblems of mundanity allowed the artist to explore his new interest in pure colour and abstraction, allowing the viewer's mind to recognise the elements despite the shocking simplification of form and total flattening of planes. He would continue exploring the possibilities of abstraction throughout the following years, beginning with these exploratory still lifes and culminating in his celebrated explosions lyriques. This exceptional work comes from the collection of Alberto Viviani, the futurist poet and contributor to Lacerba.