14 Works, Today, January 28th. is artist Pompeo Borra's day, his story, illustrated with footnotes #028

Pompeo Borra (Italian, 1898–1973)

Sulla spiaggia/ On the beach, c. 1959

Oil on canvas

75 x 102 cm 

Private collection

Pompeo Borra (1898 – 1973) began his artistic career attending the Brera Academy of Fine Arts. In 1916 he took part, as a volunteer, in the First World War. At the end of the conflict he returned to his vocation for painting. In 1924 he took part in the XIV International Art Exhibition of the city of Venice.

Pompeo Borra (Italian, 1898–1973)

Fanciulla/ Girl , c. 1926

Oil on canvas

50 x 40 cm. (19.7 x 15.7 in.)

Private collection

Pompeo Borra (Italian, 1898–1973)

Female figure on a dormeuse, c. 1930

Oil on canvas

Height: 57 cm (22.4 in); Width: 71 cm (27.9 in)

Civic Museum of Modena

Pompeo Borra (Italian, 1898–1973)

The rest, c. 1933

Oil on canvas

Height: 57 cm (22.4 in); Width: 71 cm (27.9 in)

 VAF Foundation

In the same years he met the group of founding artists of the Novecento movement, art based on the rhetoric of the Fascism of Mussolini, and began to take part in the exhibitions.

Pompeo Borra (Italian, 1898–1973)

Profughi/ Refugees,  c. 1946

Oil on canvas

40x50 cm 

Private collection

Pompeo Borra (Italian, 1898–1973)

Fuggiaschi, Fugitives

Oil on canvas

60 x 70 cm. (23.6 x 27.6 in.)

Private collection

His paintings aroused the interest of Franz Roh, the famous theorist of magical Realism and of New German objectivity, who invited him to the Italian art exhibition at the Kunstverein in Leipzig in 1928.

Pompeo Borra (Italian, 1898–1973)

L'INCONTRO/ THE MEETING, c. 1950

Oil on canvas

cm 57x71 

Private collection

Pompeo Borra (Italian, 1898–1973)

Vivificazione/  Vividness, c. 1968

Oil on canvas

100 x 90 cm. (39.4 x 35.4 in.)

Private collection

His painting of severe purism, placed between Magical Realism and Metaphysical Painting, proposes square images and compact volumes that evoke fourteenth-century painting, blocked and silent situations inhabited by everyday objects and dreamy and immobile characters, mostly female. 

Pompeo Borra Woman In Red, c. 1973 33.2 x 23.8 x 0.2 cm	Pompeo Borra Woman In Brown, 1973 33.5 x 24 x	Pompeo Borra Woman In Black, 1973 33.2 x 23.7 x 0.2 cm	Pompeo Borra Woman In Turquoise, 1975 33.4 x 24 x 0.2 cm

In this decade he collaborated with the Galleria del Milione, often going to Paris where he became friends with Léonce Rosenberg, director of the gallery L'effort moderne. His chromatic choices evolve towards transparent and brighter shades, even crossing an abstract season.

In the years 1949-1950, he took part in the establishment of the important Verzocchi collection, on the subject of work, sending, with a self-portrait, Compagni di lavoro; the Collection is today kept in the Pinacoteca Civica of Forlì.

Pompeo Borra (Italian, 1898–1973)

La madre/ Mother, c. 1968

Oil on canvas

80 x 60 cm. (31.5 x 23.6 in.)

Private collection

In the fifties / sixties painting Pompeo Borra abandons the solid and monumental volumes of the previous works, creating works in which he anticipates themes that have come back to life after his death and had a greater critical response in the 1980s with the term "postmodern". The two-dimensionality, the intense color scheme and the extreme synthesis of the figures, always immersed in an atmosphere of metaphysical suspension, will be the connotative stylistic features of his later works.

Pompeo Borra (Italian, 1898–1973)

Face, c. 1972

Oil on canvas

Height: 31.8 cm (12.5 in); Width: 21.8 cm (8.5 in)

Art collections of Cariplo Foundation

His works are preserved in important museums, institutions and private collections, including: Center Pompidou, Paris; GAM, Milan; Civic Museum of Art, Modena; MART, Rovereto; Brera Academy of Fine Arts, Milan; Civic art collections, Museo del Novecento, Milan; "Mario Rimoldi" Museum of Modern Art Cortina d'Ampezzo. More on Pompeo Borra

Please visit my other blogs: Art Collector, Mythology, Marine Art, Portrait of a Lady, The Orientalist, Art of the Nude and The Canals of Venice, Middle East Artists, 365 Saints and 365 Days, also visit my Boards on Pinterest

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