- Giacomo Balla
Giacomo Balla (
July 18 ,1871 -March 1 ,1958 ) was an Italian painter.Biography
Born in
Turin , in thePiedmont region ofItaly , the son of an industrial chemist, as a child Giacomo Balla studied music.By age twenty his interest in art was such that he decided to study painting at local academies and exhibited several of his early works. Following academic studies at the
University of Turin , Balla moved toRome in 1895 where he met and married Elisa Marcucci. For several years he worked in Rome as an illustrator and caricaturist as well as doing portraiture. In 1899 his work was shown at theVenice Biennale and in the ensuing years his art was on display at major Italian exhibitions in Rome and Venice, inMunich ,Berlin andDüsseldorf inGermany as well as at theSalon d'Automne in Paris and at galleries inRotterdam in theNetherlands .Influenced by
Filippo Tommaso Marinetti , Giacomo Balla adopted the Futurism style, creating a pictorial depiction of light, movement and speed. He was signatory to theFuturist Manifesto in 1910 and began designing and painting Futurist furniture and also created Futurist "antineutral" clothing.He also taught Umberto Boccioni. In painting, his new style is demonstrated in the 1912 work titled "Dynamism of a Dog on a Leash". Seen here, is his 1914 work titled "Abstract Speed + Sound" (Velocità astratta + rumore). In 1914, he also began sculpting and the following year created perhaps his best known sculpture called "Boccioni's Fist".During
World War I Balla's studio became the meeting place for young artists but by the end of the war the Futurist movement was showing signs of decline. In 1935 he was made a member of Rome's Accademia di San Luca.Balla participated in thedocumenta 1 1955 inKassel ,Germany , his work was also shown postmortem during thedocumenta 8 in 1987.Giacomo Balla died in Rome on
March 1 ,1958 .References
* Maurizio Fagiolo Dell'Arco, "Balla: The Futurist" (1988)
External links
* [http://hirshhorn.si.edu/collection/search.asp?Artist=Balla+Giacomo&has
] , at Artcyclopedia
* [http://www.guggenheimcollection.org/site/artist_work_md_11_1.html Abstract Speed + Sound" by Giacomo Balla, Guggenheim Museum]
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