Gino Severini

Gino Severini (1883-1966) was one of the leading painters of the Italian futurist movement, which proposed a radical renovation of artistic activity in keeping with the dynamism of modern mechanized life.

Gino Severini was born on April 7, 1883, in Cortona. In Rome in 1901 he met Umberto Boccioni, and the following year he became acquainted with Giacomo Balla, who had studied in Paris. Severini and Boccioni became Balla's pupils. Thus Severini was acquainted with the theories of divisionism when he himself arrived in Paris in 1906. There it was Georges Seurat, above all, who impressed Severini.

In his studio at the Impass Guelma, Severini created his most famous futurist pictures, such as Le Boulevard (1909) and Danse du Pan Pan au Monico (1911). He was particularly attracted by subject matter connected with cabarets and night clubs, and his paintings represent hectic rhythms with dissected and multiplied forms, as in the Dynamic Hieroglyphic of the Bal Tabarin (1912). He was one of the five artists who signed the Futurist Manifesto in 1910, and he took part in the historic exhibitions of the futurist group in Paris, London, and Berlin.

Severini's pictures, painted in Seurat's clear colors, influenced the cubists to lighten their palette, and his personal contribution was to combine the futurist program with the analytical and geometrical spirit of cubism.

In 1915 Severini joined the artists of the Effort Moderne. The experimental work produced in the style of the Section d'Or group led Severini into a transitional period, which he described in his book Du Cubisme au classicisme (1921). In the 1920s he was drawn more to murals than to easel painting, creating a series of harlequins and frescoes, based on the commedia dell'arte, at the Castle of Montefugoni near Florence (1922). He also executed frescoes in Switzerland for churches at Semsales and La Roche (1926-1927), the Capuchin church at Sion, and Notre Dame du Valentin in Lausanne (1935). Severini designed mosaics for the University of Fribourg, Switzerland (ca. 1925), and for the Palace of Art (1933) and the Palace of Justice (1939) in Milan.

Severini's development from a cubist to a neoclassicist style occurred under the influence of Pablo Picasso and the Valori Plastici group. About 1930, however, Severini returned to a sort of decorative cubism. His late work showed a tendency toward concrete art.

In 1950 Severini won a prize at the Venice Biennale. He died in Paris on Feb. 26, 1966.

Further Reading

Severini is discussed in Alfred H. Barr, Jr., Cubism and Abstract Art (1936). Raffaele Carrieri, Avant-garde Painting and Sculpture in Italy, 1890-1955 (1955), gives a panorama of the development of modern Italian art with detailed studies of the leading artists. See also James Thrall Soby and Alfred H. Barr, Jr., Twentieth Century Italian Art (1949), and Guido Ballo, Modern Italian Painting from Futurism to the Present Day (1958).

Additional Sources

Severini, Gino, The life of a painter: the autobiography of Gino Severini, Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1995. □

Severini, Gino (1883–1966). Italian painter, designer, and writer on art, active for much of his career in Paris. He was born in Cortona, moved to Rome in 1899, and decided to become a painter after meeting Boccioni in 1901. Another important early influence on Severini was Balla, who introduced him to Divisionism. In 1906 he settled in Paris, where he became a friend of his fellow Italian Modigliani, and he played an key role in transmitting the ideas of the French avant-garde to the Futurists. He signed both the Futurist manifestos of painting in 1910 and he remained active in the movement until the First World War. Like other Futurists, he was much concerned with showing movement, but he was distinctive in his subject-matter, favouring scenes of colourful Parisian night life in which—influenced by Cubism—he broke up forms into a multitude of contrasting and interacting shapes suggesting the rhythm of music and dance (Dynamic Hieroglyphic of the Bal Tabarin, MOMA, New York, 1912). His most spectacular work in this vein was The Pan-Pan at the Monico (1911–12, destroyed in the Second World War; second version, 1960, Pompidou Centre, Paris), which Apollinaire described as ‘the most important work painted by a Futurist brush'.

During the First World War Severini was excused military service because of poor health, but he painted some of the most dynamic Futurist pictures inspired by the conflict. In contrast, his other wartime work included still-lifes in the manner of Synthetic Cubism, reflecting his friendship with Gris and Picasso (Still Life, Metropolitan Museum, New York, 1917). In some of his work he came close to pure abstraction, but he was also influenced by the ‘return to order’ (see NEOCLASSICISM) that the war helped to inspire in many avant-garde artists. He became interested in mathematical proportions and compositional rules, publishing a book on the subject in 1921, Du Cubisme au classicisme (a scholarly Italian edition appeared in 1972). In the 1920s his style became more traditional and he carried out several decorative commissions, including murals for churches in Switzerland. He also worked as a theatrical designer. Severini returned to Italy in 1935, but in 1946 he settled permanently in Paris. In the late 1940s his style once again became semi-abstract. His later work included more large-scale decorative work, notably murals in the Palazzo dei Congressi, Rome (1953). His writings include the autobiographical Tutta la vita di un pittore (1946).

Gino Severini , 1883–1966, Italian painter. In 1906 he settled in Paris. First associated with the cubist painters, he later became a principal figure in the movement known as futurism . Severini was greatly influenced by Seurat and theories of neoimpressionism. The most lyrical and decorative of the futurists, he occasionally sprinkled his canvases with sequins, as in Hieroglyph of the Bal Tabarin (1912; Mus. of Modern Art, New York City).