(Milan 1852 - 1917)
THREE CARICATURES
A) Caricatures of a Milanese art dealer and of a man with monocle; black chalk, 280 x 216 mm. Signed in black chalk L/Conconi.
B) Caricatures of Luca Beltrami and of a flower seller woman; black chalk, 280 x 216 mm. Titled and signed in black chalk Luca / Beltrami / LConconi.
C) Caricature of the painter Sebastiano de Albertis; black chalk, 280 x 216 mm. Titled and signed in black chalk Sebastiano Albertis / primo pittore / LConconi.
In 1882, together with his friend Guido Pisani Dossi and other intellectuals of the Scapigliatura, Conconi was one of the founders, in Milan, of the magazine Il Guerin Meschino and one of its first illustrators.
The three caricatures we present here, were all published in the early years of the magazine's release. See Raffaello Giolli, Luigi Conconi, Prospetto Biografico - Critico, Milan and Rome, c. 1920
Conconi studied architecture at the Accademia di Brera and the Politecnico di Milano. He came into contact with members of the literary and artistic circles of the Scapigliatura – the Italian equivalent of the French Bohème– notably Tranquillo Cremona and Daniele Ranzoni, both of whom influenced his early paintings. In the 1880s Conconi moved from the Realism of Scapigliatura toward Symbolism. The awards he received in Paris in 1900 and Munich in 1913 led to his international recognition.
Conconi, who personally saw to the production of virtually all his plates, was the leading exponent in Lombardy of Acquaforte monotipata. This technique involved the artist drawing directly onto the ink covering the plate, prior to pulling the impression. In this way each resultant print has different characteristics.
