Massimo Campigli “The Ball Game” at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice

Painting - Oil on Canvas (66.5 x 59.5 cm) 1946

Massimo Campigli was born on July 4, 1895, in Florence. He left for Milan in 1909 and met futuristic painters there.

In 1919 he was in Paris, where he worked as a journalist for nine years for an Italian newspaper: "Il Corriere Della Sera."

Campigli, The Ball Game But journalism was mostly his bread and butter because his passion was painting.

His first solo exhibition was held in Rome in 1923 at the Bragaglia Gallery.

His first inspirations were those of Purism and metaphysical painting and Fernand Léger and the neoclassical works by Pablo Picasso.

In 1928, the discovery of Etruscan art at Villa Giulia in Rome was a revelation for him.

Later on, he was also inspired and attracted by Cretan, Coptic art and Pompeii's frescoes.

In “The Ball Game” (Il gioco a palla), antiquity influences are incredibly sharp.

His attraction to the ancient arts became concrete with his membership in 1929 to the group of "Sette Italiani di Parigi", of which Giorgio de Chirico was also a member.

He was then exhibited in Milan, Paris, Venice (at the Biennale d'Art) and New York and at the "Stedelijk Museum" in Amsterdam in 1946, the year of his work "The Ball Game" at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection.

He also illustrated numerous books, including Marco Polo's "Le Million" and "Thésée" by André Gide.

Campigli, The Ball Game