Alberto Magnelli
Self-taught Florentine who arrived at pure abstraction in 1915, before almost anyone in Italy.
Alberto Magnelli was born in Florence in 1888 into a textile family and was entirely self-taught, learning from the Italian primitives in the city's churches. Trips to Paris in 1913 and 1914 put him among Apollinaire, Picasso and Leger, and in 1915 he painted a group of works he called Explosions Lyriques that are fully abstract — remarkably early, and made in isolation. He then returned to figuration for over a decade before committing to abstraction for good in the 1930s. He spent the war years hiding in Grasse alongside Arp and Sonia Delaunay, and died at Meudon in 1971.
The 1915 abstract group is scarce and is the historically important part of the output; the mature post-1930 abstractions, with their interlocking flat shapes and clear contours, form the main market and are principally traded in France, Italy and Switzerland. Magnelli also worked extensively on paper, including the collages on emery paper and packing card made at Grasse during the war under conditions of material shortage, which are distinctive and sought. There is a substantial lithographic output. The artist's estate and the Italian archives handle attribution.
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