Luigi Veronesi (28 May 1908 – 25 February 1998) was an Italian photographer, painter, scenographer and film director 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 ...

.Biography of Veronesi on www.answers.com
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Early career

Luigi Veronesi trained as textile designer in the 1920s and by practised photography. He was introduced by Raffaelle Giolli to a group of Italian intellectuals associated with the review ''Poligono''. At the age of 20, he became interested in painting and took lessons with the Neapolitan painter Carmelo Violante, then professor at the ''

Accademia Carrara The Accademia Carrara, (), officially Accademia Carrara di Belle Arti di Bergamo, is an art gallery and an academy of fine arts in Bergamo, in Lombardy in northern Italy. The art gallery was established in about 1780 by , a Bergamasco col ...

'' of Bergamo (Italy).Biography of Veronesi on www.italica.rai
In 1932 he travelled to Paris and met Fernand Léger.

Abstraction

Veronesi's first works presented in the Gallery ''Il Milione'' in

were still figurative, though he moved later in the direction of abstract art. Influenced by Constructivist theories (and politically aligned with Communism), Veronesi used the cyanotype photogram after 1932 as a means of revealing metaphysical qualities in objects. In 1934, he exhibited xylographic works with the German artist

Josef Albers Josef Albers (; ; March 19, 1888March 25, 1976) was a German-born artist and educator. The first living artist to be given a solo show at MoMA and at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, he taught at the Bauhaus and Black Mountain College ...

in the Gallery ''Il Milione''. In the same year he joined the photographic group '' Abstraction-Création'' in Paris, experimented in

constructivism Constructivism may refer to: Art and architecture * Constructivism (art), an early 20th-century artistic movement that extols art as a practice for social purposes * Constructivist architecture, an architectural movement in Russia in the 1920s a ...

, and adhered to the

Bauhaus The Staatliches Bauhaus (), commonly known as the Bauhaus (), was a German art school operational from 1919 to 1933 that combined crafts and the fine arts.Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 4th edn., 20 ...

method. On 4 March 1935, he participated to the first collective exhibition of abstract art of Italy in the

atelier An atelier () is the private workshop or studio of a professional artist in the fine or decorative arts or an architect, where a principal master and a number of assistants, students, and apprentices can work together producing fine art or ...

of the painters

Felice Casorati Felice Casorati (December 4, 1883 – March 1, 1963) was an Italian painter, sculptor, and printmaker. The paintings for which he is most noted include figure compositions, portraits and still lifes, which are often distinguished by unusua ...

and Enrico Paolucci in

Turin Turin ( , Piedmontese: ; it, Torino ) is a city and an important business and cultural centre in Northern Italy. It is the capital city of Piedmont and of the Metropolitan City of Turin, and was the first Italian capital from 1861 to 1865. The ...

together with the artists Oreste Bogliardi, Cristoforo De Amicis, Ezio D'Errico, Lucio Fontana, Virginio Ghiringhelli, Osvaldo Licini, Fausto Melotti, Mauro Reggiani and Atanasio Soldati, who signed the ''Manifest of the first collective exhibition of Italian abstract art''. In 1936, Veronesi was the illustrator of a geometry book of Leonardo Sinisgalli and he participated to the ''triennal'' of Milan. In that year he also participated to an exhibition of abstract art in the city of

Como Como (, ; lmo, Còmm, label= Comasco , or ; lat, Novum Comum; rm, Com; french: Côme) is a city and ''comune'' in Lombardy, Italy. It is the administrative capital of the Province of Como. Its proximity to Lake Como and to the Alps h ...

(Italy) with the artists Lucio Fontana, Virginio Ghiringhelli, Osvaldo Licini,

Alberto Magnelli Alberto Magnelli (1 July 1888 – 20 April 1971) was an Italian modern painter who was a significant figure in the post war Concrete art movement. Biography Magnelli was born in Florence on July 1, 1888. In 1907 he started painting and, d ...

, Fausto Melotti, Enrico Prampolini,

Mario Radice Mario Radice (10 August 1898 – 26 July 1987) was an Italian painter born in Como. He is considered to be an important Italian abstract artist. Life and work Mario Radice, together with Manlio Rho, Aldo Galli, Carla Badiali and ...

, Mauro Reggiani,

Manlio Rho Manlio Rho (1901 – 1957) was a painter born in Como, Italy. He is considered one of the most important abstract artists in Italy. Life and work In the late 1920s Manlio Rho was deeply involved in Como's engagement with the European ...

and Atanasio Soldati. Experimenting with the

photogram A photogram is a photographic image made without a camera by placing objects directly onto the surface of a light-sensitive material such as photographic paper and then exposing it to light. The usual result is a negative shadow image th ...

Veronesi combined the photographic image with oil on canvas in large-scale colour images by preparing a light-sensitive canvas on which he placed objects in the dark for exposure and then fixing. The shapes became the matrix for an abstract painting to which he applied colour and added drawn geometric lines to enhance the dynamics, exhibiting them in a solo show at the Galerie L’Equipe in Paris in 1938–1939. Veronesi's interest in music continued, creating a polydimensionality in his art intended as an overall theme, and his research into the mathematical relationships of musical notes intensified as he translated musical notes into tonal relationships of colour. He thus created numerous chromatic transpositions of musical scores. In the late 1990s, the musician

Sergio Maltagliati Sergio Maltagliati (born 1960 in Pescia, Italy) is an Italians, Italian Internet-based artist, composer, and visual-digital artist. His first musical experience with the Gialdino Gialdini Musical Band was in the early 70s. Biography Sergio Ma ...

expanded on Veronesi's research. After World War II, he was the co-founder of the photographic group ''La Bussola''. He participated to the exhibition ''Arte astratta arte concreta'' in the

Royal Palace of Milan The Royal Palace of Milan (Italian: ''Palazzo Reale di Milano'') was the seat of government in the Italian city of Milan for many centuries. Today, it serves as a cultural centre and it is home to international art exhibitions. It spans through ...

(''Palazzo Reale'') in 1947 and adhered to the ''Movimento Arte Concreta'' (M.A.C.) in Milan in 1949. He worked several years as graphic designer.

Theatre and cinema

Veronesi was also active in theatre and cinema with nine experimental and abstract films made between 1938 and 1980, seven of which were destroyed during bombing in

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 ...

. He participated to the national exhibition of

scenography Scenography (inclusive of scenic design, lighting design, sound design, costume design) is a practice of crafting stage environments or atmospheres. In the contemporary English usage, scenography is the combination of technological and material ...

in Rome in 1938. In 1942, he made the scenography of the opera ''Minnie la candida'' of Riccardo Malipiero. From the 1940s, he worked as scenographer with

Giorgio Strehler Giorgio Strehler (; ; 14 August 1921 – 25 December 1997) was an actor, Italian opera and theatre director. Biography Strehler was born in Barcola, Trieste; His father, Bruno Strehler, was a native of Trieste with family roots in Vienna and die ...

, the founder of the ''Piccolo Teatro'' of Milan, in particular in works 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 ...

, and later built several sets for the

Scala Theater The Scala Theatre was a theatre in Charlotte Street, London, off Tottenham Court Road. The first theatre on the site opened in 1772, and the theatre was demolished in 1969, after being destroyed by fire. From 1865 to 1882, the theatre was kn ...

of Milan until the end of the 1980s.

Teaching

From 1963 to 1979, Veronesi taught graphic arts at the graduate course of industrial design in Venice and later was professor of colour science 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 ...

(Milan).

Late career

In the 1980s, he participated in the exhibition on Italian abstract art in the framework of the 33rd ''

Biennale di Venezia 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 ...

''; he staged a personal exhibition in

Bolzano Bolzano ( or ; german: Bozen, (formerly ); bar, Bozn; lld, Balsan or ) is the capital city of the province of South Tyrol in northern Italy. With a population of 108,245, Bolzano is also by far the largest city in South Tyrol and the third la ...

in 1980 and another in Pordenone (Italy) in 1984; and he was the coauthor, with Giancarlo Pauletto, of a book on the Italian artist Genesio De Gottardo published in 1989.Luigi Veronesi and Giancarlo Pauletto. ''Genesio De Gottardo''. Pordenone, Edizioni d'Arte, 1989 Luigi Veronesi was a polyvalent and eclectic artist who managed to synthesise the

avant-garde The avant-garde (; In 'advance guard' or ' vanguard', literally 'fore-guard') is a person or work that is experimental, radical, or unorthodox with respect to art, culture, or society.John Picchione, The New Avant-garde in Italy: Theoretical ...

movements of various regions of Europe. He died in Milan in 1998.

Retrospective exhibitions

(''Palazzo Reale di Milano'') * Institut Matildenhöhe, Darmstadt * Sprengel Museum,

Hannover Hanover (; german: Hannover ; nds, Hannober) is the capital and largest city of the German state of Lower Saxony. Its 535,932 (2021) inhabitants make it the 13th-largest city in Germany as well as the fourth-largest city in Northern Germany ...

* Stiftung für konstruktive und konkrete Kunst, Zurich

References

External links

Biography of Veronesi on www.italica.rai''Studio Calcografico Urbino''
(Italian)

(Italian)
Biography of Luigi Veronesi en fotografiaeuropea
(Italian)
Biography of Luigi Veronesi in equilibriarte
(Italian)

(Italian)
History of art of Italy 1935–1945
(Italian) {{DEFAULTSORT:Veronesi, Luigi 1908 births 1998 deaths 20th-century Italian painters 20th-century Italian male artists Italian male painters Italian set decorators Italian photographers Italian film directors Italian contemporary artists Italian scenic designers