Achille Funi

Paintings

Dea Roma (study)

Self-Portrait, 1924

Achille Funi (Ferrara, 1890 – Appiano Gentile (Como), 1972) was an Italian painter. Funi studied at the Brera Academy of Fine Arts from 1906 to 1910 and joined the Nuove Tendenze movement as a painter of Cubo-Futurist works in 1914. Having enlisted in the Volunteer Cyclist Battalion and served in World War I, he became a champion of the "return to order". He studied Graeco-Roman statuary and was influenced by De Chirico’s Metaphysical painting. His self-portrait Autoritratto da giovane, 1924, is in the Museo Cantonale d’Arte in Lugano.[2]

Having come into contact with Margherita Sarfatti, he was a founding member of the Sette Pittori di Novecento group in 1922 and then one of the leaders of Novecento Italiano,[3] taking part in the movement’s first and second exhibitions (Milan, 1926 and 1929). The author of numerous frescoes in the 1930s, he was a signatory of the Manifesto della Pittura Murale together with Mario Sironi in 1933 and became one of the artists most esteemed by the Fascist regime, obtaining a teaching post at the Brera Academy in 1939.[4] The period after World War II saw the continuation of decorative works for public and religious buildings in Milan and a parallel focus on landscapes. He died in Appiano Gentile on 26 July 1972.
Works

Portrait of his sister Margaret, 1913
Window, 1915
Self-Portrait, 1920
Earth, 1921
Maternity, 1921
Self-portrait as a young man, 1924
The myth of Ferrara, dining dell'Arengo Municipal Palace of Ferrara, 1934-1937.

Public collections

Gallery Guggenheim in Venice
Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art Filippo de Pisis Ferrara
Pinacoteca Leonidas and Albertina Repaci Palmi

Notes

Cowling and Mundy 1990, p. 106.
Museo Cantonale d'Arte, Lugano: Achille Funi
Cowling and Mundy 1990, pp. 106–107.

Cowling and Mundy 1990, p. 107.

References

Achille Funi. Viaggio di un classico nelle avanguardie (Italian) Paperback – January 1, 2000 by 1972) FUNI, Achille (Ferrara, 1890 - Appiano Gentile (Author)

Achille Funi e il "Mito di Ferrara" by Belriguardo

Cowling, Elizabeth; Mundy, Jennifer (1990). On Classic Ground: Picasso, Léger, de Chirico and the New Classicism 1910-1930. London: Tate Gallery. ISBN 1-854-37043-X
Crippa, Antonella. Achille Funi, online catalogue Artgate by Fondazione Cariplo, 2010, CC BY-SA