Primo Conti (16 October 1900 – 12 November 1988) was an Italian

futurist Futurists (also known as futurologists, prospectivists, foresight practitioners and horizon scanners) are people whose specialty or interest is futurology or the attempt to systematically explore predictions and possibilities abou ...

artist. Conti was born in

Florence Florence ( ; it, Firenze ) is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2016, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.Bilancio demografico an ...

. Between the ages of 8 and 9, he showed precocious talent in the fields of music, poetry and painting. In 1913 he met the Futurists. His attraction to the latest innovations was expressed in almost completely Futurist forms in his drawings, while he developed a unique style in his painting that was a mixture of

Art Nouveau Art Nouveau (; ) is an international style of art, architecture, and applied art, especially the decorative arts. The style is known by different names in different languages: in German, in Italian, in Catalan, and also known as the Modern ...

Fauvism Fauvism /ˈfoʊvɪzm̩/ is the style of ''les Fauves'' (French language, French for "the wild beasts"), a group of early 20th-century modern artists whose works emphasized painterly qualities and strong colour over the Representation (arts), repr ...

Expressionism Expressionism is a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Northern Europe around the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it rad ...

and Orphism. It was not until 1917, after meeting with

Giacomo Balla Giacomo Balla (18 July 1871 – 1 March 1958) was an Italian painter, art teacher and poet best known as a key proponent of Futurism. In his paintings he depicted light, movement and speed. He was concerned with expressing movement in his works, ...

in Rome, and with

Filippo Tommaso Marinetti Filippo Tommaso Emilio Marinetti (; 22 December 1876 – 2 December 1944) was an Italian poet, editor, art theorist, and founder of the Futurist movement. He was associated with the utopian and Symbolist artistic and literary community Abbaye d ...

Naples Naples (; it, Napoli ; nap, Napule ), from grc, Νεάπολις, Neápolis, lit=new city. is the regional capital of Campania and the third-largest city of Italy, after Rome and Milan, with a population of 909,048 within the city's adminis ...

(who later enthusiastically praised Conti's book ''Imbottigliature'' which was about to be printed) that Conti became part of the Futurist movement. His contribution to the movement was not only his literary works, but also the paintings and drawings he produced between 1917 and 1919—the years in which his work was taking on the

metaphysical Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that studies the fundamental nature of reality, the first principles of being, identity and change, space and time, causality, necessity, and possibility. It includes questions about the nature of conscio ...

style. The 1920s were a complex period for Conti. He explored

Mannerism Mannerism, which may also be known as Late Renaissance, is a style in European art that emerged in the later years of the Italian High Renaissance around 1520, spreading by about 1530 and lasting until about the end of the 16th century in Italy, ...

Exoticism Exoticism (from "exotic") is a trend in European art and design, whereby artists became fascinated with ideas and styles from distant regions and drew inspiration from them. This often involved surrounding foreign cultures with mystique and fantas ...

Pittura Metafisica Metaphysical painting ( it, pittura metafisica) or metaphysical art was a style of painting developed by the Italian artists Giorgio de Chirico and Carlo Carrà. The movement began in 1910 with de Chirico, whose dreamlike works with sharp contra ...

, and great historical and religious painting, covering a vast area that can be compared with his keen interest in the theatrical and literary world of

Luigi Pirandello Luigi Pirandello (; 28 June 1867 – 10 December 1936) was an Italian dramatist, novelist, poet, and short story writer whose greatest contributions were his plays. He was awarded the 1934 Nobel Prize in Literature for "his almost magical power ...

Massimo Bontempelli Massimo Bontempelli (12 May 1878 – 21 July 1960) was an Italian poet, playwright, novelist and composer. He was influential in developing and promoting the literary style known as magical realism. Life Massimo Bontempelli was born in Como ...

and Enrico Pea, which led him to found the

Viareggio Prize The Viareggio Prize ( it, Premio Viareggio, italic=no or ) is an Italian literary prize, first awarded in 1930. Named after the Tuscan city of Viareggio, it was conceived by three friends, , Carlo Salsa and Leonida Rèpaci, to rival the Milanese ...

in 1929. The 1930s brought a series of alternating events that created problems in his private life and led to his celebrative paintings. The decade also saw his enforced adhesion to Fascism (joining the

Partito Nazionale Fascista The National Fascist Party ( it, Partito Nazionale Fascista, PNF) was a political party in Italy, created by Benito Mussolini as the political expression of Italian Fascism and as a reorganization of the previous Italian Fasces of Combat. The ...

), and his inner rebellion against it which transpired from his refusal to join

Margherita Sarfatti Margherita Sarfatti (née Grassini; 8 April 1880 – 30 October 1961) was an Italian journalist, art critic, patron, collector, socialite, and prominent propaganda adviser of the National Fascist Party. She was Benito Mussolini's biographer as we ...

Novecento Italiano Novecento Italiano () was an Italian artistic movement founded in Milan in 1922 to create an art based on the rhetoric of the fascism of Benito Mussolini, Mussolini. History Novecento Italiano was founded by Anselmo Bucci (1887–1955), Leonardo ...

group and from other episodes when he stepped out of line. New prospects were only opened up to him when he became involved in designing stage sets for the opera house with the foundation of the

Maggio Musicale Fiorentino The Maggio Musicale Fiorentino (English: Florence Musical May) is an annual Italian arts festival in Florence, including a notable opera festival, under the auspices of the Opera di Firenze. The festival occurs between late April into June annuall ...

. By the 1940s, long before the official rediscovery (20 years later) of the Futurist movement, Conti was again working on Futurist subjects and experiments. From 1948 to 1963 he followed the rules of the Order of the Franciscans, though he still continued to paint. Many of his works are housed in the Museo Primo Conti (Primo Conti Foundation Museu

in the Villa le Coste at

Fiesole Fiesole () is a town and ''comune'' of the Metropolitan City of Florence in the Italian region of Tuscany, on a scenic height above Florence, 5 km (3 miles) northeast of that city. It has structures dating to Etruscan and Roman times. Sin ...

(near Florence).

External links

Official website of Fondazione Primo Conti
{{DEFAULTSORT:Conti, Primo Italian Futurist painters Futurist writers Italian Franciscans Painters from Florence 1900 births 1988 deaths