Early 20th Century Ivana Gaifas, Italian Wool Felt Handmade Futurist Fortunato Depero Art Tapestry Wall Hanging

Details

Description

It is signed in a stitch Omaggio a Depero, Ivana, 2000 Fortunato Depero (1892 – 1960) was an Italian futurist … Read more It is signed in a stitch Omaggio a Depero, Ivana, 2000 Fortunato Depero (1892 – 1960) was an Italian futurist artist and painter, writer, sculptor and graphic designer who worked in a variety of artistic mediums, from painting and graphic poster design (for Bini, Verzocchi, Campari, Strega, Folonari) to furniture and textiles. His work in textiles, created and produced in close collaboration with his wife, Rosetta Amadori, can be considered the most important development in his artistic career, as it comprised a large portion of his creative production. His textiles have been described as embroidery, needlework, tapestry, patchwork, and cloth mosaic – and the persistent relegation of textiles to the realm of crafts, folk art and domestic arts rather than art. He and his wife, Rosetta Amadori, experimented with fabric constructions and realized that their textile creations, which he referred to interchangeably as “cloth mosaics” and “tapestries” (arazzi). Though they are not technically tapestries, the description has remained. Depero grew up in Rovereto, Italy and it was here he first began exhibiting his works, while serving as an apprentice to a marble worker. It was on a 1913 trip to Florence that he discovered a copy of the paper Lacerba and an article by one of the founders of the futurism movement, Filippo Tommaso Marinetti. In 1914 he moved to Rome and met fellow futurist Giacomo Balla. It was with Balla in 1915 that he wrote the manifesto Ricostruzione futurista dell’universo ("Futurist Reconstruction of the Universe") which expanded upon the ideas introduced by the other futurists. In the same year he was designing stage sets for theater and costumes for a ballet. From his hands came paintings, carpets, toys, puppets, advertisements, furniture, clothes, objects, books, posters, costumes, and even a house - his own! - called the House of the Magician. In 1919 Depero founded the House of Futurist Art in Rovereto, which specialised in producing toys, tapestries and furniture in the futurist style. In 1925 he represented the futurists at the Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes (International Exposition of Modern Industrial and Decorative Arts), and presented a Futurist Hall at the Monza Biennial. In 1927 he created for the publisher Dinamo-Azari of Milan one of his most famous objects—the so-called "bolted book" entitled Depero futurista to celebrate the fourteenth anniversary of Futurism. Some of the more prominent Futurists include Umberto Boccioni, Carlo Carrà, Giacomo Balla, and, of course, Fortunato Depero. 1928 saw Depero move to New York City, where he experienced a degree of success, doing costumes for stage productions and designing covers for magazines including MovieMaker, The New Yorker and Vogue, among others. He also dabbled in interior design during his stay, working on two restaurants which were later demolished to make way for the Rockefeller Center. He also did work for the New York Daily News and Macy's, and built a house on 23rd Street. In 1930 he returned to Italy. In the 1930s and 40s Depero continued working, although due to futurism being linked with fascism, the movement started to wane. The artistic development of the movement in this period can mostly be attributed to him and Balla. One of the projects he was involved in during this time was Dinamo magazine, which he founded and directed. After the end of the Second World War, Depero had trouble with authorities in Europe and in 1947 decided to try New York again. One of his achievements on his second stay in the United States was the publication of So I Think, So I Paint, a translation of his autobiography initially released in 1940: Fortunato Depero nelle opere e nella vita (literally, Fortunato Depero, his works and his life). From the winter of 1947 to late October 1949 Depero lived in a cottage in New Milford, Connecticut, relaxing and continuing with his long-standing plans to open a museum. His host was William Hillman, an associate of the then-President, Harry S. Truman. After New Milford, Depero returned to Rovereto, where he would live out his days. In August 1959 Galleria Museo Depero opened, fulfilling one of his long-term ambitions. Many of his works are featured in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art of Trento and Rovereto (MART). The Casa d'Arte Futurista Depero, Italy's only museum dedicated to the Futurist movement, containing 3,000 objects, is now one of MART's venues. Closed for many years for extensive refurbishment, the Casa d'Arte Futurista Depero reopened in 2009. From February 22 until June 28, 2014, the Center for Italian Modern Art, exhibited Depero's work which engaged in dialogues with Dada and Metaphysical Painting, Esprit Nouveau, and Art Deco. Walter Salin and Giampaolo Campus, interviewed Ivana Gaifas, she was a close friend of Fortunato Depero and his wife Rosetta Amadori in the later part of the artist's life. They interviewed Carla Amadori (Rosetta Amadori’s niece), Marco Zamboni (Ferruccio Zamboni’s nephew) and Ivana Gaifas (Depero’s couple close friend). Excerpts of these conversations have already been presented in the multimedia show Cava Tapi “La voce dell’antenna” based on Fortunato Depero’s poems and life, which has been performed for the first time in Trento at the Buonconsiglio Castle in 2011. In the conversation with Ivana Gaifas, author of many interpretations in woollen cloth of Depero’s work, still in exhibition in the shop “La casa del Mago” in Rovereto, she describes the place where Depero created his works (Via dei Colli’s house), the planning phase (sketches, division of the space in squares, colours), working ways (by hand), his instruments (the drawing board) and the materials used (fabrics and pannolenci) when he was working on the tapestries. See less