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MASSIMO CAMPIGLI
(Berlin 1895 - Saint Tropez 1971)
A GIUDITTA, 1952

Lithograph, Meloni-Tavola 127.
From the set of ten Campigli La Ruche, Published by N.R.F. in Paris, 1952, printed by il Cavallino, Venice. The edition was 125 on FABRIANO paper. Our impression is one of the few artist’s proofs and is pulled on thin Japanese paper, inscribed, signed and dated in pencil at bottom E.A. / CAMPIGLI 52.
Printed area 458 x 340 mm, the sheet measuring 640 x 490 mm.
A proof of this lithograph exists, only one copy known, before the dedication A Giuditta.

 

After military service during World War I, Campigli moved to Paris in 1919. In Paris he worked for nine years as a journalist for Il Corriere della Sera, during which time he began to paint. Self-taught as a painter, he was initially drawn to Purism, Léger, the neoclassicizing works of Picasso and Metaphysical painting. Campigli also admired the preclassical works in the Louvre, but it was only in 1928, when he saw the Etruscan collection at the Villa Giulia in Rome, that he was profoundly affected by ancient art. His love of archaism and of hieratic and abstract form led him to find sources in Cretan, Pompeian and Coptic as well as Etruscan art. Campigli very rapidly won acclaim, and had exhibitions in Rome, New-York, Venice and Paris. He settled in Saint Tropez in 1949; the Palazzo Reale in Milan held a big retrospective show of his work in 1967. Campigli always showed interest in prints, mainly lithography.