Achille Funi

Dea Roma (studio), 1941–1942 (Fondazione Cariplo)

Achille Funi (26 February 1890 – 26 July 1972) was an Italian painter who painted in a neoclassical style.

Biography

Funi was born in Ferrara. He 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.^[1] 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

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

References

• 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

Further reading

• Nicoletta Colombo (eds), Achille Funi, Catalogue of paintings and cartoons in 2 tomes, Milan, Leonardo Art, 1996
• Antonella Crippa, Achille Funi, catalog Artgate Fondazione Cariplo, 2010, CC-BY-SA.

Other projects

Media related to Achille Funi at Wikimedia Commons