Enrico Paulucci or Paulucci delle Roncole (1901–1999) was an Italian

painter Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called the "matrix" or "support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush, but other implements, such as knives, sponges, and ...

and

scenic designer Scenic may refer to: * Scenic design * Scenic painting * Scenic overlook * Scenic railroad (disambiguation) * Scenic route * Scenic, South Dakota, United States * Scenic (horse), a Thoroughbred racehorse Aviation * Airwave Scenic, an Austrian ...

. He was one of the founding members of the

Gruppo dei Sei Gruppo dei Sei (Group of Six) or Sei di Torino (Six from Turin) was a group of painters who emerged under the mentorship of Felice Casorati in Turin in the late 1920s. They exhibited together for three years starting in 1929. Although each artist ha ...

Biography

Born in Genoa in 1901, Enrico Paulucci moved to

Turin Turin ( , Piedmontese: ; it, Torino ) is a city and an important business and cultural centre in Northern Italy. It is the capital city of Piedmont and of the Metropolitan City of Turin, and was the first Italian capital from 1861 to 1865. Th ...

in 1911, where he graduated in

economics Economics () is the social science that studies the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. Economics focuses on the behaviour and interactions of economic agents and how economies work. Microeconomics analy ...

in 1924 and in

law Law is a set of rules that are created and are enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior,Robertson, ''Crimes against humanity'', 90. with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. It has been vari ...

in 1927. He was briefly associated with the Turin group of “second generation”

Futurist Futurists (also known as futurologists, prospectivists, foresight practitioners and horizon scanners) are people whose specialty or interest is futurology or the attempt to systematically explore predictions and possibilities abou ...

s which included the painters

Fillìa Fillìa (3 October 1904 – 10 February 1936) was the name adopted by Luigi Colombo, an Italian artist associated with the second generation of Futurism. Aside from painting, his works included interior design, architecture, furniture and d ...

Enrico Prampolini Enrico Prampolini (20 April 1894, Modena – 17 June 1956, Rome) was an Italian Futurist painter, sculptor and scenographer. He assisted in the design of the Exhibition of the Fascist Revolution and was (like Gerardo Dottori) active in Aeropa ...

and Ugo Pozzo. In the mid-1920s he met

Felice Casorati Felice Casorati (December 4, 1883 – March 1, 1963) was an Italian painter, sculptor, and printmaker. The paintings for which he is most noted include figure compositions, portraits and still lifes, which are often distinguished by unusual ...

, one of the most important artistic personalities in Turin at the time. In 1928 he moved to

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. ...

, where he resided for nearly a year. In the same year one of his paintings was chosen for the

Venice Biennale The Venice Biennale (; it, La Biennale di Venezia) is an international cultural exhibition hosted annually in Venice, Italy by the Biennale Foundation. The biennale has been organised every year since 1895, which makes it the oldest of ...

. By 1929 he was back in Turin, where he founded the "

" ("Group of the Six") along with his friends

Jessie Boswell Jessie Boswell (March 10, 1881 – September 22, 1956) was an English painter, active mainly in her adoptive Piedmont, known as being one of the painters of the ''Gruppo dei Sei Pittori'' (1929–1931) in that city. Biography She was born in Leeds ...

, Gigi Chessa, Nicola Galante,

Carlo Levi Carlo Levi () (29 November 1902 – 4 January 1975) was an Italian painter, writer, activist, communist, and doctor. He is best known for his book ''Cristo si è fermato a Eboli'' (''Christ Stopped at Eboli''), published in 1945, a memoir of hi ...

and

Francesco Menzio Francesco Menzio (3 April 1899 – 28 November 1979) was an Italian painter. Childhood and training He was born in Tempio Pausania, Sassari in Sardinia, to Pietro Angelo Menzio, a high school teacher, and Augusta Pic, both originally from Piedmon ...

. The group looked for intellectual freedom and independence, at odds with the dominant

Fascist ideology The history of fascist ideology is long and it draws on many sources. Fascists took inspiration from sources as ancient as the Spartans for their focus on racial purity and their emphasis on rule by an elite minority. Fascism has also been co ...

. It was championed by

Riccardo Gualino Riccardo Gualino (25 March 1879 – 6 June 1964) was an Italian Business magnate and art collector. He was also a patron, and an important film producer. His first business empire was based on lumber from Eastern Europe and included forest concess ...

, a wealthy

patron of the arts Patronage is the support, encouragement, privilege, or financial aid that an organization or individual bestows on another. In the history of art, arts patronage refers to the support that kings, popes, and the wealthy have provided to artists su ...

, and by the art critics Edoardo Persico and

Lionello Venturi Lionello Venturi (25 April 1885, Modena – 14 August 1961, Rome) was an Italian historian and critic of art. He edited the first catalogue raisonné of Paul Cézanne. Life Lionello Venturi was born in 1885, son of art historian Adolfo Venturi. ...

, signer of the

Manifesto of the Anti-Fascist Intellectuals The Manifesto of the Anti-Fascist Intellectuals, written by Benedetto Croce in response to the Manifesto of the Fascist Intellectuals by Giovanni Gentile, sanctioned the irreconcilable split between the philosopher and the Fascist government of ...

of 1925 and one of the few public figures who had refused to swear allegiance to the regime in 1931. Through Persico, Paulucci contributed several articles for the monthly architectural magazine ''

Casabella ''Casabella'' is a monthly Italian architectural and product design magazine with a focus on modern, radical design and architecture. It includes interviews with the world's most prominent architects. History and profile Casabella was founded in ...

''. His paintings from this period show his interest in expressionist art, especially the work of

Henri Matisse Henri Émile Benoît Matisse (; 31 December 1869 – 3 November 1954) was a French visual artist, known for both his use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsmanship. He was a drawing, draughtsman, printmaking, printmaker, and sculptur ...

and

Raoul Dufy Raoul Dufy (; 3 June 1877 – 23 March 1953) was a French Fauvist painter. He developed a colorful, decorative style that became fashionable for designs of ceramics and textile as well as decorative schemes for public buildings. He is noted ...

. The first joint exhibition of the "Gruppo dei Sei" took place in the spring of 1929 at Galleria Guglielmi in Turin. Although each artist had an individual style, they were linked together by the influence of Parisian

post-impressionism Post-Impressionism (also spelled Postimpressionism) was a predominantly French art movement that developed roughly between 1886 and 1905, from the last Impressionist exhibition to the birth of Fauvism. Post-Impressionism emerged as a reaction a ...

and

fauvism Fauvism /ˈfoʊvɪzm̩/ is the style of ''les Fauves'' (French language, French for "the wild beasts"), a group of early 20th-century modern artists whose works emphasized painterly qualities and strong colour over the Representation (arts), repr ...

, including the work of

Amedeo Modigliani Amedeo Clemente Modigliani (, ; 12 July 1884 – 24 January 1920) was an Italian painter and sculptor who worked mainly in France. He is known for portraits and nudes in a modern style characterized by a surreal elongation of faces, necks, a ...

, and their anti-fascist ideology – a position that set them apart from other movements like

Novecento Italiano Novecento Italiano () was an Italian artistic movement founded in Milan in 1922 to create an art based on the rhetoric of the fascism of Mussolini. History Novecento Italiano was founded by Anselmo Bucci (1887–1955), Leonardo Dudreville (1885� ...

and

Futurism Futurism ( it, Futurismo, link=no) was an Art movement, artistic and social movement that originated in Italy, and to a lesser extent in other countries, in the early 20th century. It emphasized dynamism, speed, technology, youth, violence, an ...

. In 1930 and 1931, exhibitions of the "Gruppo dei Sei" took place in Paris,

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

, and

Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus ( legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...

. In the early 1930s, Paulucci founded, together with Casorati, the "studio Casorati-Paulucci," which also served as an art gallery. In 1931, together with his friend Carlo Levi (soon to be exiled to Aliano for his

anti-fascist Anti-fascism is a political movement in opposition to fascist ideologies, groups and individuals. Beginning in European countries in the 1920s, it was at its most significant shortly before and during World War II, where the Axis powers were ...

views), Paulucci designed the film settings for

Gennaro Righelli Gennaro Righelli (12 December 1886 – 6 January 1949) was an Italian film director, screenwriter and actor. He directed more than 110 films in Italy and Germany between 1910 and 1947. In 1930, he directed the first Italian sound film, '' Th ...

comedy Comedy is a genre of fiction that consists of discourses or works intended to be humorous or amusing by inducing laughter, especially in theatre, film, stand-up comedy, television, radio, books, or any other entertainment medium. The term ori ...

"Patatrac", one of the first Italian

sound film A sound film is a motion picture with synchronized sound, or sound technologically coupled to image, as opposed to a silent film. The first known public exhibition of projected sound films took place in Paris in 1900, but decades passed befo ...

s. In the 1930s he befriended the American poet

Ezra Pound Ezra Weston Loomis Pound (30 October 1885 – 1 November 1972) was an expatriate American poet and critic, a major figure in the early modernist poetry movement, and a fascist collaborator in Italy during World War II. His works includ ...

, then sojourning in

Rapallo Rapallo ( , , ) is a municipality in the Metropolitan City of Genoa, located in the Liguria region of northern Italy. As of 2017 it had 29,778 inhabitants. It lies on the Ligurian Sea coast, on the Tigullio Gulf, between Portofino and Chiav ...

. Paulucci made a sketch of the poet as he promenaded the seafront. In 1940, Paulucci took up the position of professor of painting at the

Accademia Albertina The Accademia Albertina di Belle Arti ("Albertina Academy of Fine Arts") is an institution of higher education in Turin, Italy History In the first half of the seventeenth century, there was a "University of Painters, Sculptors and Architects" ...

of Turin. In 1948, he realized the scenery and costumes for

Darius Milhaud Darius Milhaud (; 4 September 1892 – 22 June 1974) was a French composer, conductor, and teacher. He was a member of Les Six—also known as ''The Group of Six''—and one of the most prolific composers of the 20th century. His compositions ...

's ''Les Malheurs d'Orphée'', staged at the

Teatro La Fenice Teatro La Fenice (, "The Phoenix") is an opera house in Venice, Italy. It is one of "the most famous and renowned landmarks in the history of Italian theatre" and in the history of opera as a whole. Especially in the 19th century, La Fenice be ...

in Venice. Paulucci was appointed director of the Albertina in 1954. In 1963, he was appointed president of the Italian Committee of the International Association of Plastic Arts. A special show of his work was staged for him at the XXVIII Venice Biennale. Enrico Paulucci died in Turin in 1999.

Notes

Honors

Bibliography

* * * Texts by

Giulio Carlo Argan Giulio Carlo Argan (17 May 1909 – 12 November 1992) was an Italian art historian, critic and politician. Biography Argan was born in Turin and studied in the University of Turin, graduating in 1931. In 1928 he entered the National Fascist Part ...

, Carlo Levi, Enrico Paulucci delle Roncole. * * Andreotti, Libero, ''Art and politics in fascist Italy. The exhibition of the fascist revolution (1932)'', Ph.D. diss.,

MIT The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the ...

, 1989, pp. 203–206. * Ventavoli, Lorenzo (2006). ''Conversazioni con Enrico Paulucci''. In: Della Casa, S. and Prono, F. (eds.), ''Contessa di Parma. La Modernità a Torino negli anni trenta'', Rome: Fondazione Archivi del '900. pp. 147–166. * {{Authority control 1901 births 1999 deaths 20th-century Italian painters Painters from Genoa Painters from Turin University of Turin alumni Italian anti-fascists Expressionist painters Accademia Albertina