Tullio Crali

Decodence, San Francisco, CA

Giorgio Muratore, Italia 1922-1943:  Metamorfosi de un Mito,” Casabella, October 1976, p. 33 (for a skyscraper drawing completed by Crali in 1931)
Claudio Rebeschini, Crali Futurista, Milano, 1994, p. 106 (for other cityscape works on paper)

Overall in very good condition. Stretcher appears replaced and the painting has been re-tacked at least once, possibly twice. Canvas is unlined. With minor stretcher bar marks and minor frame abrasions. When examined under black light there one small possibly area of overpainting approximately one inch in diameter to the proper right of the middle section of the painting about 8 inches in from the frame in a golden colored area. Minor surface soiling.
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Futurists saw the world imbued with speed and industrial transformation.  Technology and modernity were governing principles of this artistic movement, which sought triumph over the past and conservatism.   Truli Cralli was an Italian painter that portrayed that dynamism and urgency.  Trained as a pilot and captivated with a love of speed, his paintings create an urgent sense of acceleration.  Beginning in the 1930s, Crali emerged as both a futurist and aeropainter, but his interests also extended into architecture and theatrical designs.  Crali brings the viewer toward that sense of speed and momentum, while grounding the canvases with a realistic sense of space, created by his architectural training.  Throughout the 1930s, Crali showed his work at the Venice and Rome Biennales and other exhibitions throughout Europe.

 

Painted in 1939, this canvas was completed the same year as one Crali’s most important works, “Incuneandosi nell'abitato.”