Founding atrists

Who’s next?… Alberto Martini

thefemalecurators

by Valentina Biondini, art and literature amateur

Vanitas with self-portrait, 1920

Alberto Martini was an Italian artist with many talents who strongly influenced the imagination of his own and the following era. Today his fame is almost exclusively relegated to the lovers of fantastic art, but actually Martini was also a symbolist painter, a precursor of Surrealism, as well as an illustrator of literary texts with a precise and refined line. It is no coincidence that in London, on the occasion of his exhibition in 1914, he was nicknamed “Italian pen-and-ink genius”. As an illustrator, he created images combined with texts by Dante Alighieri and Luigi Pulci, but also by Edgar Allan Poe and William Shakespeare, the poems of Paul Verlaine and the work “Poemetti in prosa” by Mallarmé. Read more →

Who’s next?… Franz Sedlaceck

thefemalecurators

by Valentina Biondini, art and literature amateur

La biblioteca, 1939

What is the definition of irony for a calamity visionary as I have been defined? Dying? Or worse, disappearing mysteriously in one of the military campaigns conducted during what was, in fact, one of the bloodiest calamities in human history, the Second World War? But let’s go in order. My name is Franz Sedlacek and, rightly or wrongly, I was one of the main Austrian artists active between the two world wars.

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Who’s next?… Maria Blanchard

thefemalecurators

by Valentina Biondini, art and literature amateur

Woman with fan

My name is María Gutiérrez-Cueto y Blanchard, but you can simply call me Maria Blanchard and, although I am unknown to most, thanks to my talent I was one of the protagonists of the avant-garde.

I was born on March 6, 1881 in Santander in the north of Spain and my childhood was painful, in my body and spirit. In fact, I came into the world with a spinal malformation that forced me to walk with a cane since I was a child, which among my schoolmates earned me the unflattering nickname of bruja, that is witch. Read more →

Who’s next?… Arturo Nathan

thefemalecurators

by Valentina Biondini, art and literature amateur

Solitudine, 1930

If you ask Who’s Next? I answer that my name is Arturo Nathan and I was an Italian painter of Jewish origin. For the themes I deal with in my painting I have been defined as “the solitary contemplator”, precisely because of the poignant way in which I was able to transpose the contemplation of the end of things onto the canvas. Here’s my story.. Read more →

Who’s next?… Rosa Rosà

thefemalecurators

by Valentina Biondini, art and literature amateur

Illustrazione da “Le mille e una notte”

The column “Who’s Next?” is renewed, not in substance, but in form. In fact, we will continue to write about unjustly forgotten protagonists of Italian art, culture and literature, but we will do it from another angle, that is, by narrating their story in first person, through a sort of fictional story or memoir, this time dedicated to the eclectic Rosa Rosà, writer, illustrator and futurist painter active above all in the 10s and 20s of the 20th century.
So let her voice guide us… Read more →