Primi Italo 1903–1983

Untitled

combined technique, kinetic assemblage, restored, 89,5 × 84,6 cm, signed on the reverse I. Primi
In the 1920s, Italo Primi studied at the Accademia Ligustica di Belle Arti in Genoa. His teacher was the sculptor Guido Galletti, who most famous for his 2.5 metre high underwater sculpture Cristo degli" sculpted in 1954 near the Ligurian coast. The artistic career of Italo Primi can be traced back to many important events in 20th-century European art history. His early work was influenced by Expressionism, but then he went through a phase in which the pictorial means became increasingly autonomous. In his later works he created reliefs and paintings that were completely non-representational. In his exploration of pictorial space and the space of the viewer, and in his integration of temporal moment, he shares similarities with the Gruppo N and Gruppo T groups of artists, founded in Padua and Milan respectively in 1959. Primi's work is largely forgotten today, probably because Primi worked on on his own, away from art centres and well-known art groups, although during his lifetime he presented his work in many exhibitions (including also at the Quadriennale Nazionale d'Arte in Rome). In his hometown Rapallo, a popular monument, Fontana der Polipo, still commemorates the artist, for which he created a large bronze octopus. ITALO PRIMI Italo Primi was an Italian painter from the Ligurian region who produced important work and lived in seclusion. In the 1960s he began to create constructivist and concrete works on paper and also painted wooden reliefs that are marked by aspects of kinetic art, minimalism and op-E39art. These reliefs show a lively, playful interaction between light and shadow and between the unchanging surface of the background and the mobile elements placed in front of it."