OTTONE ROSAI (Florence, 1895 - Ivrea, 1957). "Landscape".1952. Oil... Lot 11

OTTONE ROSAI (Florence, 1895 - Ivrea, 1957). "Landscape".1952. Oil on panel. Signed in the lower right corner. Signed and dated on the back. It presents very slight losses of the pictorial layer. Measurements: 50,5 x 35 cm. Ottone Rosai was an Italian painter who was initially linked to the futurist avant-garde but later, in his mature period (to which this painting belongs) he approached the expressionist avant-garde and post-cubism. This oil painting reveals his post-Ccezannian quest, his interest in recovering the underlying essentiality of nature. Rosai studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Florence and was influenced by Corot, Courbet, Daumier and Cézanne. In 1913, through the mediation of Ardengo Soffici, he came close to Futurism, but after the First World War he joined Expressionism. His work developed in a certain primitivist and archaising style, inspired by Masaccio, with a theme based on the working-class districts of Florence, depicted with a certain metaphysical vision (Game of Skittles, 1920; Via Toscanella, 1922). He used strong chiaroscuro, with geometrical, woody-looking characters, with a certain caricatural air, enveloped in a somewhat abstract atmosphere. This air of abstraction, of floating atmospheres, intensified after the Second World War. In the 1950s he began to be known internationally, taking part in exhibitions in cities such as Zurich, Paris, London and Madrid. He held an exhibition in Florence, which subsequently toured the museums of several cities in Germany. He died in Ivrea of a heart attack while preparing to mount an exhibition on 13 May 1957.