Quargnento, 1881 – Milan, 1966

One of the most important figures in 20th century Italian art, Carlo Carrà was born in 1881 in Quargnento, in the province of Alessandria. After gaining experience as a decorator, he enrolled at the Brera Academy of Fine Arts in 1906. In 1908 he met Boccioni and Russolo, joined the Futurist movement and in 1910 signed the ‘Manifesto della pittura futurista’ and the ‘Manifesto tecnico della pittura futurista’ with Boccioni, Russolo, Severini and Balla. In 1912 he was the author of the manifesto ‘The Painting of Sounds, Noises, Smells’.

From 1916 he began to move away from the dynamism and speed painting of Futurism. Admitted to hospital in Ferrara in 1917 during the First World War, in this place he met de Chirico, Savinio and De Pisis, with whom he developed his own metaphysical style of painting.
In 1919, he collaborated with the magazine Valori plastici.

Starting in 1922, his painting moved away from metaphysics and took a new direction. Carrà found the ideal subject in landscape to experiment with his own artistic language. In balanced compositions tending towards abstraction, Carrà’s landscapes – both marine and mountainous – are characterised by essential strokes and suspended atmospheres, where feelings of melancholy and nostalgia prevail.

From 1939 to 1951 Carrà was also a professor at the Brera Academy of Fine Arts. He died in Milan in 1966.