Carla Badiali biography

Carla Badiali was an Italian painter active during the 20th century. She was born in Novedrate, in the province of Como, on November 9, 1907, to Rosa Molteni and Ettore Badiali. She spent her childhood in France, where the family had moved for work reasons. In the land beyond the Alps, she devoted herself to music, studying piano for eight years, and to painting, painting in oil with her father.
Returning to Como at the age of sixteen, Carla Badiali began attending the Istituto tecnico industriale per la lavorazione della seta. Here she met Professor Manlio Rho, her drawing teacher and a Como painter among the leading Italian exponents of abstract art, who would influence her artistic development. It was indeed Manlio Rho who introduced her to the group of Como abstract artists, an experience that would definitively steer her towards abstract art.
Throughout her life, Carla Badiali will work both in textile and fabric design, mainly for the major silk factories in Como, and in painting.
The first exhibition of Carla Badiali, together with the Como abstract artists, took place in 1936, when the Exhibition of Modern Italian Painting was held at Villa Olmo in Como. In 1940, she subscribed to the "Manifesto of the Sant'Elia Primordial Futurist Group", which led her to exhibit artworks with the group promoting the manifesto itself.
With the onset of the war, Carla Badiali decided to neglect art to embrace the anti-fascist cause, being arrested in 1945 due to her activities against the regime. Imprisoned in San Vittore prison in Milan, the painter resumed her textile design work once released from prison. Carla Badiali designed fabrics for Italian and international fashion houses, among which Dior and Chanel stand out, and it was only from '51 that she began exhibiting her works again.
His activity continued throughout the 20th century, until his death in Como in 1992.