{{Short description|Italian artist (1888–1971)}} {{Infobox artist | bgcolour = | name = Alberto Magnelli | image = | imagesize = | caption = | birth_name = | birth_date = 1 July 1888 | birth_place = [[Florence]], [[Italy]] | death_date = {{death date and age|df=y|1971|4|20|1888|7|1}} | death_place = [[Paris]], [[France]] | field = Painting | training = | movement = [[Concrete art]] | works = | patrons = | awards = São Paulo Biennial 1951, second prize }}
'''Alberto Magnelli''' (1 July 1888 – 20 April 1971) was an Italian [[modern art|modern]] [[Painting|painter]] who was a significant figure in the post [[World War II|war]] [[Concrete art]] movement.
== Biography == <!-- Do we know anything about his education? --> Magnelli was born in [[Florence]] on July 1, 1888. In 1907 he started painting and, despite lacking formal art education,<ref name="aia">[https://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1248/is_9_87/ai_56458982 Art in America: Alberto Magnelli at Leonard Hutton]</ref> by 1909 he was established enough to be included in the [[Venice Biennale]].<ref name="marl">[http://www.marlboroughgallery.com/artists/magnelli/bio.html Marlborough: Alberto Magnelli Biography] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081012095119/http://www.marlboroughgallery.com/artists/magnelli/bio.html |date=2008-10-12 }}</ref> His initial works were in a [[Fauvist]] style.<ref name="pm">[http://www2.palazzomagnani.it/database/provincia/pm.nsf/pagine/BB6EF3BE84224909C12572410039CF3D?OpenDocument Palazzo Magnani: Alberto Magnelli]{{dead link|date=June 2017 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref> Magnelli joined the Florentine [[avant-garde]] befriending artists including [[Ardengo Soffici]] and [[Gino Severini]]. He also visited [[Paris]] where he met [[Guillaume Apollinaire]] and the [[Cubism|Cubists]] including [[Pablo Picasso]], [[Fernand Léger]], and [[Alexander Archipenko]]. By 1915 he had adopted an [[abstract art|abstract]] style incorporating cubist and [[futurism|futurist]] elements.<ref name=marl2>[http://www.marlboroughgallery.com/artists/magnelli/artwork.html Marlborough: Alberto Magnelli Between Cubism and Futurism] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080924035839/http://www.marlboroughgallery.com/artists/magnelli/artwork.html |date=2008-09-24 }}</ref>
Over the next few years Magnelli returned to figurative work and drifted away from the Italian [[avant-garde]], which was becoming more supportive of [[Fascism]], which he opposed. By 1931 he had returned to abstraction in the form of [[concrete art]]<ref name="pm"/> featuring geometric shapes and overlapping planes.<ref name="aia"/> He moved to Paris, where he joined the [[Abstraction-Création]] group<ref name=pm/> and became friends with [[Wassily Kandinsky]], [[Jean Arp]] and [[Sophie Taeuber]].<ref name="marl"/> Following the invasion of France by the [[Nazi]]s, Magnelli and his future wife, Susi Gerson, went to live in [[Grasse]] with several other artists including the Arps. Some of the group, including Gerson, were [[Jewish]] so they were forced to hide. Despite this, the group was able to produce a number of collaborative works.<ref>[https://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1248/is_n3_v86/ai_20382962/pg_5 Art In America: An invented paradise]</ref>
Following the [[Second World War]], Magnelli returned to Paris which was to be his home for the rest of his life. He became a major figure in the post war concrete art movement and influenced artists such as [[Victor Vasarely]], [[Nicolas de Staël]] as well as the concrete artists in South America such as [[Hélio Oiticica]]. He again exhibited at the Venice Biennale, this time with a whole room. Major galleries organised retrospectives of his work.<ref name=marl/>
Magnelli died on 20 April 1971 at his home in [[Meudon]], Paris.
== Key exhibitions == *Venice Biennale (1909) *Galleria Materassi, Florence (1921) (his first solo exhibition) *Pesaro Gallery, Milan (1929) *Galerie Pierre, Paris (1934) (his first major exhibition in Paris) *Nierendorf Gallery, New York (1937) (his first solo exhibition in the USA) *René Drouin Gallery (1947) *Venice Biennale (1950) *São Paulo Biennial (1951) (awarded second prize) *Palace of Fine Arts, Brussels (1954) (his first full retrospective exhibition) *Stedelijk Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven (1955) *Documenta II, Kassel (1955) *Kunsthaus, Zürich (1963) (major retrospective celebrating his 75th birthday) *Museum of Modern Art, Paris (1968) <ref name=marl/><ref name=pm/>
== References == {{Reflist}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Magnelli, Alberto}} [[Category:1888 births]] [[Category:1970 deaths]] [[Category:20th-century Italian painters]] [[Category:Italian male painters]] [[Category:20th-century Italian male artists]]