Massimo Campigli
Massimo Campigli, pseudonym of Max Hilenfeld, was born in Berlin in 1895 to a young mother of upper bourgeois origins. Immediately after his birth, the mother moved to Florence with the child, who grew up believing that she was actually an aunt. Only at fifteen did he discover the truth, an event that left a deep mark on his perception of the female world, a recurring theme in his artworks.
Raised between Florence and Milan, he showed from a young age a strong inclination towards literature and art.
In 1914 he was hired by the Corriere della Sera and, simultaneously, frequented the Milanese futurist circles, coming into contact with artists such as Umberto Boccioni and Carlo Carrà. During the First World War he enlisted in the Italian army and was taken prisoner in 1916. He escaped the following year, returning to Italy only in 1918.
From 1919 he was a correspondent from Paris for Corriere della Sera. Here his passion for painting exploded: by day he worked in the studio, by night he wrote for the newspaper. His first paintings caught the eye of the art dealer Léonce Rosenberg, who bought several artworks from him. In 1921 he exhibited for the first time at the Salon d'Automne.
In 1927 he definitively left journalism to devote himself to painting. At the same time, he founded the group “The Seven of Paris” with De Chirico, Tozzi, Severini, De Pisis, Paresce and Savinio. Campigli stood out for a pictorial style influenced by Etruscan sculpture, which he discovered during a visit to the Villa Giulia Museum in Rome. This led him to adopt a technique similar to fresco, with soft colors, stylized figures, and geometric compositions.
In 1933 he adhered to the “Manifesto of Mural Painting”, also signed by Sironi, Carrà and Funi. Subsequently, he was commissioned to create large public frescoes, such as Thou Shalt Not Kill in the Palace of Justice in Milan, and a monumental decoration for the Liviano Palace in Padua, covering over 300 sqm.
In the 1930s he married the sculptor Giuditta Scalini, with whom he had a son, Nicola. During the war he moved to Venice to escape the bombings. After the war he returned to Milan and devoted himself to lithography, illustrating among other things the Poems of Paul Verlaine.
From the post-war period onwards, Campigli achieved international fame. He participated in numerous exhibitions in cities such as Amsterdam, London, New York, Paris, Boston, and Rome. He was invited several times to the Venice Biennale (1950, 1952, 1954, 1958 and with a personal room in 1962) and to the Tate Gallery in London. In 1955 he held a solo exhibition at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam.
In the 1960s he received numerous recognitions, including the title of Commander of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic and election as Academician of San Luca. In 1971, a few months after his last retrospective at the Royal Palace of Milan, he died in Saint-Tropez.
Massimo Campigli artworks
Campigli's artworks are recognizable for their archaic style, inspired by Etruscan art, with frontal, static female figures, often placed in symbolic contexts. His paintings, characterized by a refined simplification of forms and an earthy and sober color palette, evoke a sense of timelessness and sacredness. Frequent themes are the workers, the mothers, and everyday scenes transfigured into modern icons. Among his masterpieces are The Seamstresses (1925), preserved at the Hermitage in Saint Petersburg, and the cycle of frescoes in the Palace of Justice in Milan. His artworks are today exhibited in the most prestigious museums in the world, from the MoMA in New York to the National Gallery of Modern Art in Rome.
