Umberto Boccioni
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to:navigation, search
Umberto Boccioni self-portrait
Umberto Boccioni (19 October 1882 – 17 August 1916) was an Italian painter and
sculptor. Like other Futurists, his work centered on the portrayal of movement
(dynamism), speed, and technology. He was born in Reggio Calabria, Italy.
Contents
[hide]




1 Biography
2 Gallery
3 References
4 External links
[edit] Biography
A native of Reggio Calabria, Boccioni studied art through the Scuola Libera del Nudo at
the Accademia di Belle Arti in Rome, beginning in 1901. He also studied design with a
sign painter in Rome. Together with his friend Gino Severini, he became a student of
Giacomo Balla, a divisionist painter. In 1906, Boccioni studied Impressionist and PostImpressionist styles in Paris. During the late 1906 and early 1907, he shortly took
drawing classes at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Venice. In 1901, Boccioni first visited
the Famiglia Artistica, a society for artists in Milan. After moving there in 1907, he
became acquainted with fellow Futurists, including the famous poet Filippo Tommaso
Marinetti. The two would later join with others in writing manifestos on futurism.
Boccioni became the main theorist of the artistic movement. He also decided to be a
sculptor after he visited various studios in Paris, in 1912, among which those of Braque,
Archipenko, Brancusi, Raymond Duchamp-Villon and, probably, Medardo Rosso. While
in 1912 he exhibited some paintings together with other Italian futurists at the BernheimJeun, in 1913 he returned to show his sculptures at the Gallerie La Boetie: all related to
the elaboration of what Boccioni had seen in Paris, they in their turn probably influenced
the cubist sculptors, especially Duchamp-Villon.
In 1914, he published Pittura e scultura futuriste (dinamismo plastico) explaining the
aesthetics of the group: “While the impressionists make a table to give one particular
moment and subordinate the life of the table to its resemblance to this moment, we
synthesize every moment (time, place, form, color-tone) and thus build the table.” He
exhibited in London, together with the group, in 1912 (Sackville Gallery) and 1914 (Doré
Gallery): the two exhibitions made a deep impression on the young English artists: some
joined then the Vorticism, led by Wyndham Lewis.
Mobilized in the declaration of war, Boccioni was assigned at an artillery regiment at
Sorte, near Verona. On 16 August 1916, Boccioni was thrown from his horse during a
cavalry training exercise and was trampled. He died the following day, age thirty-four.
[edit] Gallery
States of Mind III; Those
Who Stay, 1911
oil on canvas painting
Museum of Modern Art, New
York
Unique Forms of Continuity
in Space, 1913
bronze (depicted on Italian
Portrait (detail) of Ferruccio
Busoni, 1916
Galleria Nazionale d'Arte
Moderna, Rome
20 cent euro coin)
Museum of Modern Art,
New York
Self-portrait, 1905 (oil on
canvas)
A strada entra nella casa,
Metropolitan Museum of Art, Visioni simultanee, ca. 1912
1911
Von Der Heydt Museum,
New York
Sprengel-Museum, Hannover
Wuppertal