Massimo Campigli (Berlino 1895 – Saint Tropez 1971)

Campigli discovered his vocation for painting (to which he had remained an outsider, despite having frequented the Futurist milieu before the war). In 1909 he moved to Milan where he came into contact with the Futurist milieu and after military service in 1919 he was injected into Paris as a correspondent for the Corriere della Sera. In 1926 he formed the group of Seven Italians in Paris with De Chirico, De Pisis, Paresce, Savinio, Severini and Tozzi. The group had direct relations with the Novecento group, in whose Milan exhibitions (1920 and 1929) Campigli also participated. 1930 was a key year for Campigli's painting: inspired by Egyptian, Etruscan and Pompeian models, and referring back to his previous compositional choices, he developed a repertoire of forms, mostly female, schematic, hieratic, frontal, representing the real world according to archaic modules: this was his way of expressing Novecento magic realism. Observing his works from the 1930s to the 1960s shows how Campigli's painting did not undergo substantial changes over the years. Campigli's graphic production is important. It was created for illustrated books and received great impetus between the 1920s and 1930s when in Paris, where the artist had settled, French publishing was at its peak in terms of importance and quality of editions.

In 1995, Galleria Guastalla editions Graphis Arte published the Catalogo ragionato of Campigli's graphic works (lithographs and engravings) by Francesco Meloni and Luigi Tavola.