Biography
Futur-Expressionist
There is another side in Depero’s stylistic evolution that must be carefully observed. From 1914 until 1917, as well as in his abstract experiments and theatrical works (as we shall see), the artist was also involved in drawing up a certain number of raw china drawings with an almost xylographic effect.
There is another side in Depero’s stylistic evolution that must be carefully observed. From 1914 until 1917, as well as in his abstract experiments and theatrical works (as we shall see), the artist was also involved in drawing up a certain number of raw china drawings with an almost xylographic effect.
These drawings, rather than approaching typologically futuristic methods, still move from the experience of the grotesques and show clear openings to the expressionist graphic landscape as, probably, seen on the pages of “Das Kunstblatt”, “Die Aktion” or “Der Sturm” (the magazine he later contributed) (1),well known newspapers, considered the continuous relations with the former comrades of the Royal School (then students in Munich or Vienna). If, on one side are surely recognizable some references to the works by Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, Conrad Felixmüller, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, it has also to be outlined that Depero was able to develop immediately his own graphic style, inflecting expressionist typological ways to sometimes futurist themes, but immediately recognizable as Deperian style.
It is a particular segment of his production that, in relation to the almost unique characteristics of his work, places the artist from Rovereto among the most interesting names in the panorama of the Italian graphic production of the time.
These drawings, rather than approaching typologically futuristic methods, still move from the experience of the grotesques and show clear openings to the expressionist graphic landscape as, probably, seen on the pages of “Das Kunstblatt”, “Die Aktion” or “Der Sturm” (the magazine he later contributed) (1),well known newspapers, considered the continuous relations with the former comrades of the Royal School (then students in Munich or Vienna). If, on one side are surely recognizable some references to the works by Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, Conrad Felixmüller, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, it has also to be outlined that Depero was able to develop immediately his own graphic style, inflecting expressionist typological ways to sometimes futurist themes, but immediately recognizable as Deperian style.
It is a particular segment of his production that, in relation to the almost unique characteristics of his work, places the artist from Rovereto among the most interesting names in the panorama of the Italian graphic production of the time.
Notes
- Precisely in 1922 (in the number 7/8).