Giorgio de Chirico: Life and Paintings

(Hardback)

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This is the most comprehensive volume probing the life and work of the modern art icon Giorgio de Chirico.

Giorgio de Chirico was one of the most controversial and consequential artists of the twentieth centurya key member of the Paris avant-garde, he was a major influence on other artists, especially the nascent surrealists. His repertoire of motifsempty arcades, elongated shadows, mannequins, trainscreated images of forlorn emptiness that became iconic.

Artists inspired by de Chiricos early work include Yves Tanguy, Pablo Picasso, Max Ernst, Salvador Dal, and Ren Magritte. His influence also extended beyond painting and included writers and poets Guillaume Apollinaire, Andr Breton, John Ashbery, and Sylvia Plath, filmmakers Jacques Prvert and Michelangelo Antonioni, and even David Bowie, who admired de Chiricos genderless tailors dummies that inspired his music videos.

After the Great War, he turned toward neoclassicism and bitterly fell out with the surrealists and the mainstream modernist movementin the process, becoming an outspoken outsider of the art world.

This in-depth examination of the artists life and work by the worlds foremost de Chirico authority is based on new archival research and offers a fresh view of de Chiricos relationship with surrealism, fascism, forgery, and the European avant-gardes.

Author Bio

Fabio Benzi is considered the worlds foremost expert on Giorgio de Chirico. He is a professor at the University of Chieti-Pescara and a board member of Fondazione de Chirico, and he has curated exhibitions in Rome, Venice, Milan, Moscow, Paris, Vienna, New York, Tel Aviv, Istanbul, and London.