Composition, 1960

Alberto Magnelli   Master Artists

Born in 1888 in Florence, Alberto Magnelli spent most of his life in France, where he died years later in 1971. Due to his past in Italy, he retained a passion for Rennaissance painters and got the opportunity to rub shoulders with Italian futurists. Completely self-taught, as his art was influenced by his encounters. Attached to the avant-guard modern art in Paris, he gradually turned towards abstraction, 1915 onwards.

Magnelli's forms on the canvases protect one another and the plans alternate sparingly. One can see the synthetic strokes made up of smooth figures where geometry doesn't exist. Clear and pure colors that mingle with complete abstraction of shapes and provide rigor to the canvas.

Alberto Magnelli is going to push abstraction to its culmination, depriving his paintings of a title, therefore there won't be the slightest connotation or any hints of information. Complete abstraction, summarized by maximal simplification of objects and shapes. This ambition has made Alberto Magnelli the first Italian artist to explore the resources and non-figurative vocabulary.

He uses several types of mediums, ranging from gouache to stuck paper.

Alberto Magnelli's abstractions were presented several times in France, especially at the Centre d'Art La Malmaison in Cannes and the Musée des Beaux-arts de La Chaux-de-Fonds.

Find this artist and many more in our collection of works from the Lyrical Abstraction movement.