Filippo de Pisis

Filippo De Pisis (pseudonym of Luigi Filippo Tibertelli) was born in Ferrara in 1896 and died in Milan in 1956. His first paintings were exhibited in a solo show in Rome in 1924 at the historic Bragalia Gallery, the only venue at that time to showcase truly quality artworks. In 1925, he left Rome for Paris and then London. Upon returning to Milan due to the war and after gaining greater awareness of his painting and craft, he experienced one of the most intense and frenetic periods of his career in the Lombard capital, painting and selling extensively. “I feel the smoke of celebrity. A happy period of my life. I am in magnificent shape for painting and more,” he noted. His hotel room on Via Durini and later his beloved apartment on Via Rugabella in Milan became constant crossroads for artists, intellectuals, and cultural figures, as well as for the “sensual and wild adolescents” whom the artist loved and portrayed repeatedly.

The artist's wonderful culture, his refined aesthetic sense, and his elegant touch led him to create works that were “different in a world of equals.” He painted romantic perspectives of Milan, such as in Il Foro Bonaparte, and depicted nude bodies, as in Il suonatore di flauto, set in a familiar environment scattered with personal objects, making the scene particularly intimate. His still lifes, such as Pesce e coltello, recall his famous marine still lifes from the 1920s, although they depart from formal definitions and the ordered tables where every object had its place and volume. During these years, he indeed achieved the rapid and instinctive brushwork he had admired in the Impressionists, reflecting his restless and anxious spirit.