Giorgio de Chirico (Italy) 1888-1978

ARTIST PROFILE



Major Italian painter, who founded the metaphysical school. He was born in Vólos, Greece, the son of an Italian engineer. He studied art in Athens and in Munich, where he was strongly influenced by the allegorical works of the 19th-century Swiss painter Arnold Böcklin. In Turin and Florence and in Paris, where he settled in 1911, he painted deserted cityscapes, such as Enigma of an Autumn Night (1910) and Mystery and Melancholy of a Street (1914). These early metaphysical works, through sharp contrasts of light and shadow and exaggerated perspective, evoke a haunting, ominous dream world. As an army conscript in Ferrara in 1915 de Chirico met the futurist painter Carlo Carrà; together they founded the magazine Pittura Metafisica in 1920. From 1915 to 1925 de Chirico painted bizarre, faceless mannequins and juxtaposed wildly unrelated objects in his still lifes, a technique adopted by the surrealists. From 1924 to 1930 de Chirico gave enormous impetus to the surrealist movement and influenced such surrealists as Yves Tanguy and Salvador Dalí. By the mid-1930s he had turned to an outworn academic style and chose to become a fashionable portraitist.




"Chirico, Giorgio de," Microsoft® Encarta® Online Encyclopedia 2001
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RELATED EXHIBITIONS
London : Major Surealist Exhibition at Tate Modern

ARTIST WORKS

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WORK DETAILS
Hector and Andromache
Title: Hector and Andromache
Medium: 1917, Oil on canvas
Exhibited at: Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna
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The Child's Brain
Title: The Child's Brain
Medium: 1914, dimensions 80×65cm, Oil on canvas
Exhibited at: Moderna Museet
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The Conquest of the Philosopher
Title: The Conquest of the Philosopher
Medium: 1914, dimensions 125×99cm, Oil on canvas
Exhibited at: Art Institute of Chicago
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The Disquieting Muses
Title: The Disquieting Muses
Medium: Oil on canvas
Exhibited at: Private collection
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The Evil Genius
Title: The Evil Genius
Medium: 1915, dimensions 61×50cm, Oil on canvas
Exhibited at: Museum of Modern Art, New York
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The Great Metaphysician
Title: The Great Metaphysician
Medium: 1917, dimensions 104×69cm, Oil on canvas
Exhibited at: Museum of Modern Art, New York
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The Melancholy and Mystery of a Street
Title: The Melancholy and Mystery of a Street
Medium: 1914, dimensions 87×71cm, Oil on canvas
Exhibited at: Private collection
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The Prodigal Son
Title: The Prodigal Son
Medium: 1922, Oil on canvas
Exhibited at: Civico Museo d'Arte Contemporana
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The Uncertainty of the Poet
Title: The Uncertainty of the Poet
Medium: 1913, dimensions 106×94cm, Oil on canvas
Exhibited at: Tate Modern
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