MARIO BETTINELLI Lot n° 183

Treviglio, 1880 - Milan, 1953 Friends Signed M Bettinelli at lower right Oil on canvas, 119X80 cm Provenance: Milan, private collection Exposures: Milan, Galleria Pesaro, Individual exhibition of Mario Bettinelli, 1923, no. 58, Milan, Galleria Pesaro, Solo exhibition of the painters Mario Bettinelli and Cesare Fratino, 1930, no. 36 Bibliography: AA. VV., Modern Culture. Nature and Art, Year XXXII, Milan 1923, p. 599, no. 10 Mario Bettinelli's artistic life consists of several phases, beginning with the period from 1895 to 1901, when he attended Moretto da Brescia's School of Drawing in Brescia, specializing in portrait and caricature techniques. He then moved to a second phase, which lasted from 1900 to 1915, when he moved to Milan and came into contact with the late Scapigliato milieu, devoting himself to the creation of allegorical subjects and female portraits. In Milan, in those years, artists would in fact concentrate on the elaboration of numerous variations of the timeless archetype of the femme fatale, first among them Ambrogio Alciati, Giuseppe Amisani and Giuseppe Palanti. The woman depicted by Bettinelli is usually caught in seductive attitudes of languid reverie, ecstatic contemplation, which were often inspired by the poses of silent film divas, of which the work under consideration is a good example. His notoriety would increase with the passing of World War I, so much so that in 1918 one of his paintings was acquired by the City of Milan, which included it in the city's Art Collections. He exhibited on several occasions at the Pesaro Gallery, where he also presented, in 1923 and 1930, the painting illustrated here, entitled Amiche. Among the many exhibitions in which he took part was the 10th International Art Exhibition in Venice in 1912, during which the works Autoritratto and Creatura del Mare were exhibited. Reference bibliography: Mario Bettinelli pittore e caricaturista 1880 ; 1953, exhibition catalog in Treviglio edited by S. Rebora, Milan 2000, ad vocem