Mario Sironi

Biography

Sironi (1885-1961) frequented the studio of Giacomo Balla when he studied in Rome during the early 1900s. He became a close friend of Umberto Boccioni and moved to Milan in 1914, where he was immediately drawn into the Futurist movement.Sironi was interested in Boccioni's notion of 'plastic dynamism', but was never in complete agreement with Futurist ideas concerning the fragmentation of form. In fact, he was attracted to Futurism more by its socio-political ideas – such as its scorn for bourgeois values and its extreme nationalism – than he was by its aesthetic principles, and he enthusiastically supported the movement's campaign for Italian intervention in the First World War.By the 1920s, the sprawling industrial quarters of Milan had become his principal source of inspiration, and his work focused increasingly on the dehumanising aspects of modern urban life. During the inter-war period he was closely associated with the Novecento movement and became one of Fascism's leading artists, receiving numerous prestigious commissions for murals. After the Second World War, his work became increasingly abstract.

Artworks in this collection

Exhibitions featuring Mario Sironi