Emilio Sommariva (8 December 1883 – 12 September 1956) was an Italian painter and photographer.

Biography

Sommariva was born in Lodi, Itaiy. His father, Luigi, was an amateur painter and photographer himself. The Sommariva family moved to Milan while Emilio was an infant. In 1897, age 14, he began to attend

Angelo Comolli Angelo is an Italian masculine given name and surname meaning "angel", or "messenger". People People with the given name *Angelo Accattino (born 1966), Italian prelate of the Catholic Church *Angelo Acciaioli (bishop) (1298–1357), Italian Ro ...

’s School of Decoration classes at 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 ...

. In 1899, due to financial difficulties, he had to drop out of school. He was then employed as a photographer by the Compagnia Continentale Brunt & C. Foundry and subsequently by the Ganzini photographic studio. A few months later, in 1902 he opened his own studio in Viale Monforte (now Viale Pavia) with a wide terrace intended for portraiture photography. In the following years he relocated his studio to Via Paolo and Via Montenapoleone. After a few difficult years, Sommariva eventually established himself as a portraitist as well as an able documentator of other artists's work, including

Umberto Boccioni Umberto Boccioni (, ; 19 October 1882 – 17 August 1916) was an influential Italian painter and sculptor. He helped shape the revolutionary aesthetic of the Futurism movement as one of its principal figures. Despite his short life, his approach ...

Aroldo Bonzagni Aroldo Bonzagni (24 September 1887 – 30 December 1918) was a painter, draftsman, and illustrator born in Cento, Italy. He moved to Milan to attend the ''Accademia di Brera'' on a scholarship, joining the ranks of avant-garde artists and becomi ...

Carlo Carrà Carlo Carrà (; February 11, 1881 – April 13, 1966) was an Italian painter and a leading figure of the Futurist movement that flourished in Italy during the beginning of the 20th century. In addition to his many paintings, he wrote a number ...

and Futurists like

Gaetano Previati Gaetano Previati (1852 – 1920) was an Italian Symbolist painter in the Divisionist style. Biography Previati was born in Ferrara. He relocated to Milan in 1876 and enrolled at the Brera Academy of Fine Arts, studying under Giuseppe Bertini, G ...

and

Adolfo Wildt Adolfo Wildt (March 1, 1868 – March 12, 1931) was an Italian sculptor. He is mostly known for his marble sculptures, which blend simplicity and sophistication, and paved the way for numerous modernist sculptors.http://translate.googleusercont ...

Text was copied from this source, which is available under
Attribution 3.0 Italia (CC BY 3.0 IT)
license. Sommariva also specialized in industrial, architectural and landscape photographs. His work was acknowledged at the 1911 Esposizione Internazionale di Fotografia Artistica e Scientifica di Roma (where he won a gold medal) and the Turin Esposizione e Concorso Internazionale di Fotografia (where he received a diploma of honour). In 1922 he won the first prize at the International Exhibition of Professional Artistic Photography at the

Royal Photographic Society The Royal Photographic Society of Great Britain, commonly known as the Royal Photographic Society (RPS), is one of the world's oldest photographic societies. It was founded in London, England, in 1853 as the Photographic Society of London with ...

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

. In the 1920s he also began to exhibit as a painter: he participated in the Brera Biennale in 1925, in the

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 ...

in 1926 and in the exhibitions held at the Societá della Permanente 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 ...

. During this period he painted numerous landscapes inspired by the foothills of the Alps in Lombardy and Piedmont where he spent many summers in a house in

Lanzo d'Intelvi Lanzo d'Intelvi was a ''comune'' (municipality) in the Province of Como in the Italian region Lombardy, located about north of Milan and about north of Como, on the border with Switzerland. It has been frazione of Alta Valle Intelvi Alta Valle ...

. In 1938, after refusing to become a Fascist Party carrying-card member, he had his photographer license withdrawn. In 1943, during an air raid over Milan, Sommariva's house and study were bombed. dEspite suffering significant damage, the majority of his original prints and plates were left intact. In 1950 Sommariva's work was the subject of a retrospective exhibition at Galleria Ranzini in Milan. Sommariva's archives, documents and photographs were purchased from his heirs in 1979 and are now part of the Braidense Library at

Palazzo Brera Palazzo Brera or Palazzo di Brera is a monumental palace in Milan, in Lombardy in northern Italy. It was a Jesuit college for two hundred years. It now houses several cultural institutions including the Accademia di Brera, the art academy of ...

. The collection includes 2,814 prints and about 50,000 negatives mostly on glass, as well as ten manuscripts, inventory papers, address books and other documents.

References

Sources

* Laura Casone
Emilio Sommariva
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 found ...

, 2010, CC BY-SA (source for the first revision of this article).

Other projects

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sommariva, Emilio 19th-century Italian painters Italian male painters Italian photographers Brera Academy alumni 20th-century Italian painters Painters from Milan Italian landscape painters 1883 births 1956 deaths 19th-century Italian male artists 20th-century Italian male artists