Filippo de Pisis

From a very young age, De Pisis demonstrates a creative and versatile talent in which a strong literal inclination combines interest in painting. In 1915 and 1917, the meeting with the De Chirico brothers and Carrà, admitted to the military hospital in Ferrara, constituted a turning point in his biography, and the painting, hitherto overwhelmed by literary interests, would become an intense passion, Which will accompany the writing into a fruity osmosis. Through the 'metaphysics' comes into contact with the French avant-garde and he knows Apollinaire, Jacob, Tzara; Meanwhile he studies Letters in Bologna, where he contacts Giorgio Morandi. He moved to Rome, where he met the writers of "La Ronda" and set up the first exhibitions: in 1920 drawings and watercolors at the House of Bragaglia Art, in 1924 oils and tempers in the reduced of the National Theater, still from Bragaglia in 1925. In That Parisian experience began in Paris: in the fourteen-year-long stay in the French capital, his paintings come to maturity and are the most striking and happy deaths, urban views, portraits and naked in the studio at this time. In 1926 he held the first staff at the Galérie au Sacre du Printemps, presented by De Chirico; At the same time he writes for "L'Italia Letteraria" and for other magazines, actively participating in the group of "Italians of Paris" (De Chirico, Savinio, Campigli, Tozzi, Paresce and Pozzati). In 1931, he illustrated the book by his friend Giovanni Comisso with a series of watercolors. In 1938, after returning to Italy on vacation and after a few short trips to England, De Pisis began a collaboration with Italo Mus in his studio at Saint Vincent. Unable to return to France for the outbreak of the Second World War, he settled in Milan until 1943, when his studio in via Rugabella was destroyed by bombings; During the war continues to work with intensity despite the annoying symptoms of the serious nervous discomfort that afflicted him since the youth. He moved to Venice, in San Barnaba, where, until 1948, he studied painting by Francesco Guardi and other great Venetian masters of the eighteenth century. His success at the 1948 Biennale consecrated him as one of the major interpreters of Italian painting in the first half of the twentieth century. The first anthological exhibition dates back to 1951 at the Castello Estense in Ferrara.

Text © Monte dei Paschi di Siena, 2017