Giorgio De Chirico biography
Giorgio De Chirico was an Italian painter, engraver and sculptor among the main exponents of Metaphysical Painting. He was born in Volo, Greece in 1888 to Italian parents of noble origins. His brother Andrea Alberto was born in 1891 and in 1914 he took the stage name Alberto Savinio for his activity as a musician, writer and painter. In 1900 Giorgio De Chirico enrolled at the Polytechnic University of Athens where he began studying painting. In 1906 he returned to Italy with his mother and brother, settling first in Milan and then Florence where he enrolled at the Academy of Fine Arts. In 1907 he enrolled at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich where he attended the lessons of Franz von Stuck and became interested in the art of Arnold Böcklin e Max Klinger.
In 1909 he returned to Milan where he was reunited with his mother and brother. In 1910, during a stay in Florence with his mother, he painted The enigma of an autumn afternoon , with which he inaugurated the cycle of Metaphysical squares . From 1911 to 1915 he lived in Paris together with his brother Alberto and came into contact with artists such as Guillaume Apollinaire, Max Jacob and Pablo Picasso. Between 1912 and 1913 he began to paint his first Mannequins present in the works The disturbing muses and The troubadour. The figure of the mannequin representing the contemporary man-automaton was inspired by a character in a play by his brother Alberto Savinio, the man without a face.
At the outbreak of the First World War the two brothers enlisted and were sent in Ferrara in the 27th Infantry Regiment. In this period the De Chiricos became friends with Carlo Carrà, Filippo de Pisis and Giorgio Rea. In particular, Filippo de Pisis often hosted friends in his apartment in Palazzo Calcagnini, in via Montebello , influencing the metaphysical sensitivity of Giorgio De Chirico who began the cycle of Metaphysical Interiors in the Ferrara period.
In 1924 he met and married the actress and dancer Raissa Calza and together they they settle in Paris. In the French capital Raissa abandons dance and resumes archeology studies at the Sorbonne. Inspired by his partner's studies, Giorgio De Chirico begins to paint archaeological subjects, a homage to classicism, however proposed in a disturbing way. Among the works of this period we remember Hector and Andromache and Roman Villas. The marriage did not last long, in fact at the end of 1930 the painter fell in love with Isabella Far who became his second wife and who remained close to him until his death.
From 1925 to 1935 Giorgio De Chirico deepens the study of the Metaphysics of light and Mediterranean myth giving rise to the cycles of the Archaeologists, the Horses on the seashore, the Trophies, of the Landscapes in the room, of the Furniture in the valley and of the Gladiators.
In 1924 and 1932 he participated in the Venice Biennale and in 1935 at the Quadrennial of Rome. Between 1936 and 1937 he settled in New York where he exhibited his works at the Julien Levy Gallery .