Artgate Fondazione Cariplo - Carpi Aldo, Il bacino di San Marco a Venezia

Aldo Carpi (6 October 1886 – 27 March 1973) was an Italian artist, painter and writer, author of a collection of memoirs concerning his imprisonment in the infamous

Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp Mauthausen was a Nazi concentration camp on a hill above the market town of Mauthausen (roughly east of Linz), Upper Austria. It was the main camp of a group with nearly 100 further subcamps located throughout Austria and southern Germa ...

Biography

Born in

Milan Milan ( , , Lombard: ; it, Milano ) is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, and the second-most populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of about 1.4 million, while its metropolitan city h ...

, early in his youth he started studying fine arts under the tutelage of Stefano Bersani. In 1906 he joined the

Brera Academy The Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera ("academy of fine arts of Brera"), also known as the or Brera Academy, is a state-run tertiary public academy of fine arts in Milan, Italy. It shares its history, and its main building, with the Pinacoteca di ...

, where he met some of the most renowned Italian painters of the time, including Giuseppe Mentessi, Carlo Cattaneo,

Cesare Tallone Cesare Tallone (1853–1919) was an Italian painter. Biography Born in Savona and after losing his father at the age of ten, Cesare Tallone moved with his mother and sisters to Alessandria, where he became a pupil of the decorative artist Piet ...

, as well as Achille Funi, Emilio Gola and Carlo Carrà. The following year he showed his work at a Brera art exhibition, which was followed by an invitation to the 1912

Venice Biennale The Venice Biennale (; it, La Biennale di Venezia) is an international cultural exhibition hosted annually in Venice, Italy by the Biennale Foundation. The biennale has been organised every year since 1895, which makes it the oldest of ...

. Since then he participated in every edition of the Venice Biennale up until his death, with the exception of those held in 1940, 1950 and 1952. Drafted into the

Italian Army "The safeguard of the republic shall be the supreme law" , colors = , colors_labels = , march = ''Parata d'Eroi'' ("Heroes's parade") by Francesco Pellegrino, ''4 Maggio'' (May 4) ...

in 1915, he served at various fronts of the

Great War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

. In 1917 he married Maria Arpesani, whom he had a son, Pinin Carpi, with on the 11th of July 1920. In the 1920s, Carpi developed the style of his paintings and landscapes under the influence of Italian 19th-century painters. For his works in 1925 he was awarded with the prestigious Premio Principe Umberto. In 1927 he became the author of new frescoes in the San Simpliciano Basilica in Milan. In 1930 he became the professor and deacon of the faculty of painting at his alma mater, where he would teach young painters including Bruno Cassinari, Carlo Martini and

Trento Longaretti Trento Longaretti (27 September 1916 – 7 June 2017) was an Italian painter. He studied at the Brera Academy in the 1930s, where he was taught by renowned artists, including painters Aldo Carpi and Pompeo Borra, and sculptors Francesco Messin ...

. In 1934 he also prepared a project for the new stained glass windows in the

Duomo of Milan Milan Cathedral ( it, Duomo di Milano ; lmo, Domm de Milan ), or Metropolitan Cathedral-Basilica of the Nativity of Saint Mary ( it, Basilica cattedrale metropolitana di Santa Maria Nascente, links=no), is the cathedral church of Milan, Lombard ...

, which was not completed until after

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

. In 1937 his work was featured at the

Exposition Internationale des Arts et Techniques dans la Vie Moderne The ''Exposition Internationale des Arts et Techniques dans la Vie Moderne'' (International Exposition of Art and Technology in Modern Life) was held from 25 May to 25 November 1937 in Paris, France. Both the Palais de Chaillot, housing the Mus ...

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...

, where he was awarded a bronze medal. The piece is now in the collection of the Museo Cantonale d'Arte in

Lugano Lugano (, , ; lmo, label=Ticinese dialect, Ticinese, Lugan ) is a city and municipality in Switzerland, part of the Lugano District in the canton of Ticino. It is the largest city of both Ticino and the Italian-speaking southern Switzerland. Luga ...

.Museo Cantonale d'Arte, Lugano: Aldo Carpi
/ref> In January 1944, during World War II, he was arrested after a colleague informed the Nazis of his partisan activities. He was imprisoned in the Gusen I concentration camp of the Mauthausen-Gusen complex, where he kept a diary and made a number of sketches portraying life and death in the camp. Carpi was liberated at the end of the war. He returned to Milan, where in 1956 he was awarded the state prize for his works and cultural merits. He also became the Dean of the Brera Academy. In 1972 he had a large retrospective of his works. He died in 1973 in Milan.

Exhibitions

* "Mostre d'arte in risaia", Mortara, 1936 and 1938, curated by Carlo Ercole Accetti.

References

* Antonella Crippa
Aldo Carpi
online catalogu
Artgate
by

Fondazione Cariplo Fondazione Cariplo is a charitable foundation in Milan, Italy. It was created in December 1991 when the Amato law, Law no. 218 of 30 July 1990, came into force. Under this law, saving banks were required to separate into a not-for-profit fou ...

, 2010, CC BY-SA.

External links

*
Diario di Gusen

{{DEFAULTSORT:Carpi, Aldo 1886 births 1973 deaths Artists from Milan Italian male painters 20th-century Italian painters Mauthausen concentration camp survivors Brera Academy alumni Brera Academy faculty 20th-century Italian male artists