Osvaldo Licini, abstract artist of the fantastic. Life, works, style

Osvaldo Licini (Monte Vidon Corrado, 1894 - 1958) was one of the leading Italian artists of the early twentieth century, whose works ranged between different genres, including landscapes, portraits and still lifes in the early figurative period, then in the 1930s he landed on abstractionism and finally settled on a very personal genre called by the artist himself “fantastic.”For Licini, painting was not meant to be rational, but rather to arise from creative impulses: hence, the heterogeneity of his production.

The works dated between the 1940s and the 1950s feature two recurring figures, namely theRebel Angel and a female figure called “Amalassunta,” which are presented in different versions. They are two rebellious and mysterious figures, personification of feelings and sensations that deeply fascinated the artist, who appear on large backgrounds of pure color.

Licini spent much time in Paris, where he came into contact with numerous artists including Pablo Picasso, Paul Klee and Amedeo Modigliani. In adulthood he returned permanently to his hometown in the Marche region of Italy, where he was also elected mayor and where today it is possible to visit his birthplace converted into a house-museum.

Biography of Osvaldo Licini

Osvaldo Licini was born in Monte Vidon Corrado, a small town near Fermo, in the Marche region of Italy, on March 22, 1894. After his birth, his parents moved to Paris for work (his father began working as a billboard artist and his mother ran a fashion house), while Osvaldo remained in his hometown with his paternal grandfather. His grandfather soon noticed that his grandson possessed a flair for the arts, so he arranged for him to enter theAccademia delle Belle Arti in Bologna, where Giorgio Morandi was among the other students.In 1913 Licini came into contact with the Futurists (without, however, joining the movement), and in 1914 he participated for the first time in a public exhibition organized by the Secessionists, where he found his fellow student Morandi himself. That same year, Licini moved to Florence to study sculpture at the Academy of Fine Arts, however, the following year he became involved in World War I. While in combat on Podgora he was wounded in the leg and remained limp for the rest of his life. He returned to Florence for treatment and here he met a girl who worked for the International Red Cross, Beatrice Müller, with whom he began a love affair from which his son Paul was born.

He later went to Paris to his mother and sister who had remained there (his father, meanwhile, had passed away) to spend their convalescence. There, the painter came into contact with very important personalities, including Pablo Picasso, Jean Cocteau and Amedeo Modigliani, whose works he became close friends and whose works he deeply admired. The artist often traveled back and forth between France and Italy, participating in numerous exhibitions as well as the Salon d’Automne and Salon des Indépendants. In 1926, thanks to the intercession of Gian Emilio Malerba, Licini exhibited a number of works in the celebrated I Mostra del Novecento Italiano organized in Milan by Margherita Sarfatti, and he also later participated in the second exhibition in 1929.

In the meantime he had married another girl, Swedish painter Nanny Hellströ m, whom he had met in France, and decided to return with her permanently to his native Monte Vidon Corrado. He continued to work and exhibit throughout the 1930s, and around 1935 he opened his first solo exhibition in Milan, at the Galleria del Milione. He also joined the Futurist Primordial Group in 1941, which included Mario Radice, Manlio Rho, Alberto Sartoris and Giuseppe Terragni, among others. A particular episode in Licini’s life concerned his active participation in political life, as between 1943 and 1945 he supported the National Liberation Committee and in 1946 was even elected mayor of Monte Vidon Corrado. The artist then passed away on October 11, 1958, while at the same time a room dedicated to him in the XXIX Venice Biennale was being opened to the public.

The style and works of Osvaldo Licini

Osvaldo Licini left many writings that illustrate and decipher his art. Licini’s style over the years, in fact, follows different inclinations and cues, and his works often turn out to be different from one another, while maintaining a certain recognizability in his hand. Therefore, at times his choices may seem inconsistent, but from Licini’s own words we learn a certain conviction that rationality and creative drive should remain separate, as art, if too controlled, could be sterile. Moreover, he believed that art should be the enemy of imitation, and rather the proponent of modernity. Hence, therefore, the heterogeneity of his pictorial production. Licini’s earliest dated works are a portrait of his Grandfather Filippo (1908), the one who had always encouraged his artistic abilities, and a Self-Portrait (1913).

Later, a work different from the previous ones is known, namely Italian Soldiers (1917). The work is entirely done in shades of white and blue, and for the first time the image of the rebel angel appears, a theme that would often return in Licini’s paintings, who in this case is portrayed falling from above brandishing a sword toward a group of soldiers. A direct reference to Lucifer, the fallen angel, is very likely in this work, and quotations from Dante’sInferno can be recognized. Licini was very fascinated by the theme of rebellion, and these references clearly confirm this. Licini’s works dated between 1919 and 1928 are figurative and range in diversity of subjects and colors, moving from nudes to landscapes, from still lifes to portraits, such as the drawing of the unfinished work dedicated to Leopardi or the portraits dedicated to his wife. Notable works from this period include Portrait of a Woman (1921) and Portrait of Nanny (1926).

A key figure for the painter was certainly Amedeo Modigliani. In particular, Modigliani characterized his nude scenes with a certain restlessness and suffering that Licini wished to integrate into his works with the same theme. These include The Nude of 1925, in which the woman portrayed has no face and seems closer to a mannequin than to a sensual figure. In a questionnaire Licini had sent to the art critic, bookseller and publisher Giovanni Scheiwiller, the artist had traced the periods of his artistic evolution up to that time, giving each a name: thus, fantastic primitivism (from 1913 to 1915), war episodes (from 1915 to 1920) and realism (from 1920 to 1929) are identified. However, the latter is followed by a question mark, to make it clear how it was a completely personal way of seeing reality.

Licini made an important turning point by approachingabstractionism in 1930, initially with a more geometric style and then arriving at the compositions for which he is best known, namely large monochromatic blocks on which human figures appear in whole or in part, compositions that are known as “fantastic.”

Between the 1940s and the 1950s, Licini’s “fantastic” works include two recurring figures: theRebel Angel (an evolution from his early works) declined on different colored backgrounds and in different modes, and the Amalassunte. This mysterious female character made her first appearance in 1950, in the XXV Venice Art Biennial, and a few days earlier Licini wrote in a letter addressed to the art critic Giuseppe Marchiori “...some curious soul should turn precisely to you, art critic without stain and without fear, to know who is this mysterious ’Amalassunta’ about whom so much is still unspoken, please answer, on my behalf, without a shadow of a doubt, smiling, that Amalassunta is our beautiful Moon, guaranteed silver for eternity, personified in a few words, the friend of every slightly weary heart.” A figure, then, who personifies the melancholy, yearning and reflection typical of dreamers. Moreover, the name suggests the religious sphere, which Licini, although agnostic, looked at with curiosity and interest precisely because he was attracted by the mystery surrounding cults and in particular the Catholic one.

Geometries pertaining to the abstract period nevertheless remain present in the artist’s production even in the last known works bearing his signature, but unlike the marked geometrism of his early works, these fit into the large colored backgrounds in a softer way.

Where to see the works of Osvaldo Licini

The artist’s works are preserved in Italy, scattered among several contemporary art museums. In Licini’s hometown of Monte Vidon Corrado, his family home was converted into a museum in 2013 and contains objects, clothing and furniture that belonged to the artist and his wife. The house itself features paintings on the walls created by Licini himself. It is often used as a venue for contemporary art exhibitions.

In Ascoli Piceno, however, there is the Osvaldo Licini Gallery of Contemporary Art, named in his memory and including 40 paintings and 38 drawings by the artist. Among the most important works are The Archangel (1919), Female Portrait (1921), The Nude (1925) and Rebel Angel on a Dark Red Background (1946).

A group of works is also in the Palazzo Ricci in Macerata, including some landscapes from the 1920s, an Amalassunta from the 1940s and the geometric Fantastico (1954).

Other contemporary museums in major cities preserve his works, some of which are in Turin in the Galleria d’arte Moderna(Bird 2, 1936; Evening (large) 1950; Winter, 1951) in Milan (a Rebel Angel on a yellow background dated between 1950 and 1952 in the Museo del Novecento; The Balance of 1934 and Rebel Angel with White Moon of 1955 in the Pinacoteca di Brera), in Florence (a Landscape and a Still Life with Grapes both dated 1928 in the Museo Novecento) and in Rovereto(Composition of 1933; Flying Millionaire of 1944-45; Portafortuna of 1954; Fiore fantastico of 1955; and Angelo con coda su sfondo blu of 1957-58), in Genoa(Ritmo of 1933 in the Museo d’arte contemporanea di Villa Croce), and finally other works are kept in the Cerruti collection of the Castello di Rivoli.

Osvaldo Licini, abstract artist of the fantastic. Life, works, style

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