A retrospective of the Italian painter Gino Severini is being held at the Musée de l’Orangerie. “Gino Severini (1883 – 1966), Futurist and Neo-classicist” will show till 25 July 2011.
The artist’s last retrospective took place forty years ago, also in Paris. Severini admired Paris enormously and once said: “The cities to which I feel most strongly bound are Cortona and Paris: I was born physically in the first, intellectually and spiritually in the second”. He settled in Paris in 1906 to study the art of Seurat and was much inspired by the artists of his time, such as Raoul Dufy, Signac, Van Gogh, Degas and Toulouse-Lautrec, amongst others.
The evolution of Severini’s work is emblematic of the artistic proliferation of the first part of the twentieth century. The exhibition traces the different periods of his career: Divisionism from 1905 to 1910; Futurism from 1911 to 1915; Cubism from 1916 to 1919; a return to Figurative art between 1920 and 1943 and finally, Neofuturism and Abstraction from 1848 to 1951.(zt)
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Gino Severini was born in Cortona on 7 April 1883. In 1899 the Italian painter, graphic artist and sculptor went to Rome in 1899 to attend evening classes at the Villa Medici. After a decisive encounter with Giacomo Balla and Umberto Boccioni he began working as an artist in 1901. Balla introduced him to the divisionistic colour technique of the Neo-Impressionists. Gino Severini moved to Paris in 1906 where he studied the Impressionists, was fascinated with Seurat's paintings and met Signac. Beside Modigliani, Picasso, Braque and Gris he further encountered various well-known poets and thinkers of his time. Marinetti and Boccioni invited him to join the Futurist-movement. On 11 February 1910 Severini signed the 'Manifesto of Futurist Painting' and thus became a co-founder of this style. In contrast to his artist colleagues, Severini was barely interested in the dynamic of machines, but in the depiction of human bodies in motion. His cabaret scenes and depictions of dancers were made during his period. Works like 'Blue Dancer' (1912) show the typical Futurist principles of faceting and simultaneous effects. Severini exhibited works in 1912 at the Futurist exhibitions in Paris, London and Berlin and developed relationships between Italy and France. The artist's work became Cubist after 1915. From now on the artist increasingly focused on the harmony of geometric constructions like the golden section. His favourite subjects were the still lifes with musical instruments and scenes from the Commedia dell' Arte. Between 1924 and 1935 Severini was commissioned with numerous murals and mosaics. He led an exciting life between Rome and Paris and published theoretical texts and books on art. Severini was awarded the Grand Prize of the Biennale in Venice in 1950. The divisionist concept of the picture, together with a Cubist-Futurist style, which was adopted by Balla, is typical of Severini's entire oeuvre. He analysed light, movement and events, which happened after one another but are linked by memory. Gino Severini died in Paris on 26 February 1966. Important works by the artist are today exhibited in Milan (Collection Gianni Mattioli) and Rotterdam (Museum Boymans-van-Beuningen).
