MASSIMO CAMPIGLI WORKS

Massimo Campigli, born Max Hilenfeld, was one of the most important and representative Italian painters of the 20th century. He was born in Berlin in 1895 to an eighteen-year-old single mother who, shortly after his birth, decided to move to Florence with her family.
The young Campigli grows up believing that his mother is his grandmother, while in reality, it is his aunt Paolina. At the age of fifteen, he accidentally discovers the truth, leaving him deeply shaken. From that moment on, he will see the female figure with different eyes.
During his classical studies, Massimo Campigli shows a strong interest in both literature and art. In 1914, at the age of nineteen, he begins working at the Corriere della Sera and at the same time frequents the Milanese Futurist environment, coming into contact with Umberto Boccioni and Carlo Carrà.
When the First World War breaks out, having applied to become an Italian citizen, Massimo Campigli is enlisted and sent to the front. In 1916, he is taken prisoner and spends some time in a security facility in Vienna, from where he will manage to escape in 1917.
After returning to Italy, he resumes working for the Corriere della Sera as a correspondent in Paris. In the city of light, his passion for painting explodes, leading him for many years to work as a painter by day and a journalist by night. His excellent artistic skills are immediately noticed. Some of his paintings are, in fact, sold to Leon Rosenberg, who at that time was considered one of the most important art dealers. As early as 1921, Campigli exhibited his first works at the Salon d'Automne.
At the end of the 1920s, Massimo Campigli resigned from his position as a journalist at Corriere della Sera to dedicate himself entirely to painting, creating the group that would be known as "I sette di Parigi", also known as "Italiens de Paris". Besides Campigli, the group consisted of De Chirico, Tozzi, Severini, De Pisis, Paresce, and Savino. The group would be active until 1932.
At the end of the 1920s, the painter travels to Rome for a trip and visits, on that occasion, the Museo di Villa Giulia, being particularly struck by Etruscan art. This event fascinated him so much that it led him to change his way of painting, bringing his technique closer to that of fresco, with a limited use of colors and a greater geometrization of figures and objects.
An element always at the center of Massimo Campigli's works is the female figure, which is surrounded by various subjects such as children, bathers, and factories. These creatures were stylized, half idols and half toys, enclosed within their geometries, trapped in showcases made of paint.
His artistic change leads him to reject his old paintings, deciding to repaint the old canvases. The following decade, the 1930s, sees him as the protagonist of several solo exhibitions throughout Europe and in major cities around the world.
In these years, he meets and marries the sculptor Giuditta Scalini, and it is the period in which he paints several portraits for well-known American collectors. Massimo Campigli's growing interest in fresco leads him to accept the commission to fresco a wall of the Palazzo di Giustizia in Milan on the occasion of the Universal Exhibition.
During the Second World War, Massimo Campigli moved to Venice with his family to avoid the bombings. It is here that his first son Nicola was born. After the war, the artist returned to Milan and began to devote himself to lithography, illustrating Le Poesie by Paul Verlain.
In these years, he exhibits all over the world. Some of the most noteworthy exhibitions, between the Forties and Fifties, are those in Venice, Amsterdam, Rome, Paris, London, Manchester, Boston, and New York.
His last solo exhibition is organized at Palazzo Reale in Milan. A few years later, in May 1971, Massimo Campigli passes away in Saint-Tropez.