Arturo Martini

Arturo Martini (Treviso, 1889 - Milan, 1947)

Always interested in European influences, he attended the School of Adolf von Hildebrand in Munich in 1909, and in 1912 he moved to Paris where he deepened his knowledge of Cubism and the avant-gardes and where he exhibited at the Salon d'Automne.

He took part in the International Free Futurist Exhibition held in Rome in April-May 1914 with the Portrait of Homer Soppelsa, considered a tribute to Futurism. In the same years, he collaborated with the futurist magazine L'Eroica, dedicated to the themes of art, literature and xylography. Then, he approached abstract graphics and created his first sketches in his book Contemplations. The book presents, instead of text, a sequence of geometric signs.

Between 1918 and 1922, he collaborated with Mario Broglio to the magazine Valori Plastici, adhering to the homonym artistic movement. Thanks to this experience, he rediscovered ancient sculpture, thus overcoming nineteenth-century naturalism to which he was still attached. Among the important works of this period are La Maternità (1925) and Il Bevitore (1926). In 1925, he was invited to exhibit in a room at the III Roman Biennial; in the following years, he participated for the first time in the Venice Biennial, after former rejections. In the same year, he exhibited at the first exhibition of the Novecento art movement.