Alberto Manelli (1888-1971)

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Alberto Manelli was born in 1988 in Florence gyu in the family of a prosperous merchant, who hoped that his offspring will continue his work. His knowledge of painting, this autodidact required regular visits to museums in his native city, and the study of old masters (That's what he said about Piero della Francesca: "He taught me how to build a track on the surface of the canvas, he explained to me the rules of the game between filled and empty space."
His first works date back to 1907, and already they can see that for Manelli painting - is primarily the architecture, a set of simplified forms. Energetic circuit, which emphasizes the forms, makes them more stressed readability. The critic Maurice Besse noted geometrical inherent Manelli works from a very early period, describing them as "harmonious assemblage of color plans.

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Soon after, around 1913, he became friendly with the Italian Futurists - Marinetti, Boccioni, Carra, but not joined their group. In 1914 he went to Paris, where he met Henri Matisse, Max Jacob, Guillaume Apollinaire, Pablo Picasso, Fernand Leger, Juan Gris, and Alexander Archipenko. Painting Manelli this period still figurative - he was interested in spatial composition, the breakdown of forms, color plans.
But soon, returning to Italy in 1915, Manelli began doing abstract work, which he called "fictitious art".
I must say, Manelli never entered into any group, not overly committed to the artistic movements. Manelli found himself in the art of its own way, of course, is not alien to the aesthetics of his time, but the way this was different from all, individual.

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In the period from 1920 to 1930., Years marked by friendship and close contact with Giorgio de Chirico, he returned to figurative painting, but without the renunciation of abstraction. At this time, it depicts the objects color spots and marks, to emphasize the broad white outlines (we can assume that these features art Manelli was chained to the attention of the young Nicolas de Stael) - these works are somewhat reminiscent of Florentine primitives, which he valued so highly .
In the late 1920's. he ceased to paint, but in 1931, under the strong impression of the trip to Carrara, where he saw the marble quarries, he created a great series of "Stones" or fractured rocks. In the same year he moved to Paris, where in 1934 he had a solo exhibition.

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Since 1935, he dealt exclusively with abstract painting, focusing on shape, color and rhythm of his compositions.
During the Second World War, Manelli, like many other artists (Sonia Delaunay, Jean Arp and Sophie), left-occupied Paris and took refuge in the town of Grasse in southern France. Since the canvas during the war years it was impossible to get it, he began to paint in gouache on a slate, and make collages of the most unassuming material (cardboard, scraps of paper) that he has not ceased to deal with until his death: he experimented with them - they have served him as to the laboratory. Despite the fact that sometimes he used them as sketches for large paintings, Manelli has always stressed the independence of his collages.

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At the end of the war Grass Gallery of Modern Art organized his solo exhibition. Manelli at this time greatly influenced the artists such as Mortensen, Derol or Vasarely (Steel we have already mentioned).

In 1949 his works were shown at the exhibition "Masters of abstract art," and next year he was given a room at the Venice Biennale. In 1954, his retrospective was organized in Brussels in 1955 - in the Museum of Grimaldi in Antibes.

Prices Manelli (but recent results at Christie's, which I led in the plot devoted to these tenders, and which I think is a record, this list has not yet been made): http://www.findartinfo.com/search/listprices.asp? keyword = 55583 & name = Alberto_Magnelli

Established reproduced works and their sizes (when I was able to find them) - in the caption below the images.