Primo Conti (1900-1988)

Aliases: Umberto Conti; Umberto Primo Conti

Professions: Painter

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  Primo Conti (1900-1988)

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  PRIMO CONTI

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  Primo Conti (1900-1988, Italian), painting

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  Primo Conti, (Italian, 1900-1988), Untitled (a group of three works)

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Primo Conti Biography

(b Florence, 16 Oct 1900; d Fiesole, 13 Nov 1988). Italian painter. A child prodigy, he published music and exhibited paintings at the age of 13, and met Umberto Boccioni and Ardengo Soffici. He produced Fauvist works (e.g. Self-portrait in a Bathing Robe , 1915; Fiesole, Fond. Primo Conti) before forming a wartime Florentine Futurist group with Achille Lega (1899–1934) and Ottone Rosai. His dynamic paintings, such as Refugees at the Station (1918; Fiesole, Fond. Primo Conti), coincided with contributions to L’Italia futurista , of which he became editor before being called up in 1918. After World War I, Conti’s shifting interests were reflected in his periodicals Il centone (1919; edited with Corrado Pavolini (b 1898)) and L’enciclopedia (1920–23). He met Filippo de Pisis and developed a mysterious realism influenced by Pittura Metafisica, although it was the contemporary treatment of his Rape of the Sabines (1925; priv. col.; see 1980–81 exh. cat., p. 179) that caused controversy at the Rome Biennale of 1925. After a period of financial difficulties spent in Viareggio (1926–30), where he associated with writers Luigi Pirandello and Massimo Bontempelli, Conti married in 1931 and concentrated on portraying his young family. Official recognition in the later 1930s culminated in a professorship (1941) at the Florentine Accademia di Belle Arti. Following World War II, Conti reassessed his Futurism, precipitating an energetic disintegration of the figure (e.g. Seated Figure No. 3 , 1965; Rome, Vatican Museum) that recalled Picasso and de Kooning. Subsequent experiments with Surrealist automatist techniques engendered the freedom and lyrical eroticism of his late works. In 1979 Conti established the Centro Documentario Avanguardie Storiche, Fondazione Primo Conti in Fiesole to house his collection and his invaluable archive of the Italian avant-garde.

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• Futurism (16)

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