Pirandello, Fausto (1899-1975) - Self-Portrait (Christie's Milan, 2000)
Ink of paper; 29 x 24.5 cm.
Italian painter. The son of the dramatist Luigi Pirandello, he trained with the sculptor Sigismondo Lipinsky between 1919 and 1920, when he turned to painting. His early work was influenced by Armando Spadini and Felice Carena, whom he knew personally, as well as by Gauguin, Kokoschka and van Gogh. In 1925 he exhibited at the third Biennale di Roma, and in 1927 he moved to Paris, where he was influenced both by Jules Pascin and by Cubism (e.g. his Still-life with Glasses, 1929; Rome, priv. col., see 1976–7 exh. cat., no. 9). He was associated with Giorgio De Chirico, Alberto Savinio and the other members of the Italiani di Parigi group, and he had solo shows in 1929 (Paris) and 1930 (Vienna). In 1931 he returned to Rome, exhibiting Interior in the Morning (1931; Paris, Pompidou) at the Sindacale Romana. Although he had links with the Scuola di Via Cavour (see SCUOLA ROMANA) and with Corrado Cagli, Giuseppe Capogrossi and Emanuele Cavalli, during the 1930s he developed a highly individual form of poetic realism. Many of his paintings were composed of strange, irrational elements: for example Interior in the Morning includes a picture-frame surrounding the head of the central figure, a motif that had already appeared in Ladies with a Salamander (1928–30; Rome, priv. col., see Ferrari, p. 19). This suggestion of a ‘painting within a painting’ had in fact been anticipated by the Pittura Metafisica of De Chirico. The fantastic, mythical world that Pirandello created out of scenes from working-class life was, however, entirely his own. In The Staircase (1934; Rome, Gualino priv. col., see Ferrari, p. 26) a mundane depiction of a prostitute descending the stairs of a brothel is transformed by the fragmentary, phantom-like image of another woman walking upstairs. The subversion of everyday reality is also achieved through Pirandello’s manipulation of space. He exaggerates perspective in The Staircase, while the foreground of Golden Rain (1934; priv. col.) contains an illogical, crowded assembly of objects, together with an upside-down naked female figure, who appears to be about to tumble out of the picture plane.
Pirandello, Fausto (1899-1975) - Self-Portrait (Christie's Milan, 2000)
Ink of paper; 29 x 24.5 cm.
Italian painter. The son of the dramatist Luigi Pirandello, he trained with the sculptor Sigismondo Lipinsky between 1919 and 1920, when he turned to painting. His early work was influenced by Armando Spadini and Felice Carena, whom he knew personally, as well as by Gauguin, Kokoschka and van Gogh. In 1925 he exhibited at the third Biennale di Roma, and in 1927 he moved to Paris, where he was influenced both by Jules Pascin and by Cubism (e.g. his Still-life with Glasses, 1929; Rome, priv. col., see 1976–7 exh. cat., no. 9). He was associated with Giorgio De Chirico, Alberto Savinio and the other members of the Italiani di Parigi group, and he had solo shows in 1929 (Paris) and 1930 (Vienna). In 1931 he returned to Rome, exhibiting Interior in the Morning (1931; Paris, Pompidou) at the Sindacale Romana. Although he had links with the Scuola di Via Cavour (see SCUOLA ROMANA) and with Corrado Cagli, Giuseppe Capogrossi and Emanuele Cavalli, during the 1930s he developed a highly individual form of poetic realism. Many of his paintings were composed of strange, irrational elements: for example Interior in the Morning includes a picture-frame surrounding the head of the central figure, a motif that had already appeared in Ladies with a Salamander (1928–30; Rome, priv. col., see Ferrari, p. 19). This suggestion of a ‘painting within a painting’ had in fact been anticipated by the Pittura Metafisica of De Chirico. The fantastic, mythical world that Pirandello created out of scenes from working-class life was, however, entirely his own. In The Staircase (1934; Rome, Gualino priv. col., see Ferrari, p. 26) a mundane depiction of a prostitute descending the stairs of a brothel is transformed by the fragmentary, phantom-like image of another woman walking upstairs. The subversion of everyday reality is also achieved through Pirandello’s manipulation of space. He exaggerates perspective in The Staircase, while the foreground of Golden Rain (1934; priv. col.) contains an illogical, crowded assembly of objects, together with an upside-down naked female figure, who appears to be about to tumble out of the picture plane.