Aroldo Bonzagni
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(b Cento, 24 Sept 1887; d
Milan, 30 Dec 1918).
Italian painter and draughtsman. In 1906 he moved to Milan with a
scholarship and enrolled in the Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera in
Milan. He soon joined the ranks of such Milanese avant-garde artists
as Carlo Carrà, Umberto Boccioni and Luigi Russolo, whose admiration
for Gaetano Previati he shared. Through the influence of the latter
and through Boccioni he became familiar with modernism. In 1910 he
signed the Futurist Manifesto and took part in the evening
performances in which the Futurists declaimed their manifestos.
However, he soon disassociated himself from the movement and turned
his attention to the depiction of reality, which he interpreted and
portrayed with a feeling of irony and caricature (e.g. Exit from
La Scala, 1910; Cento, Gal. A. Mod. Aroldo Bonzagni). His
numerous drawings were influenced by the work of Henri de
Toulouse-Lautrec, Jean-Louis Forain and Théophile-Alexandre
Steinlen, and above all by the style of the Munich and Vienna
Secessions, known in Italy through the Venice Biennales of the early
1900s. In 1910–11 he created decorations for the Villa S Donnino
(now Villa Leonardi) at San Donnino della Nizzola near Modena. In
1912, having participated in the Mostra della pittura e della
scultura rifiutata organized by Boccioni at the Palazzo Cova,
Milan, he exhibited at the Venice Biennale. In 1913 he participated
in the Mostra nazionale della caricatura in Bergamo, leaving
for Argentina the following year, after again exhibiting at the
Venice Biennale. In Buenos Aires he painted some frescoes in the
race-track (destr.) and worked for the humorous periodical El
Zorro. After returning to Milan, he set up a show in 1915 in the
Palazzo delle Aste. In his work he increasingly depicted the poorest
sectors of society (e.g. Beggars, 1916–17; Milan, Gal. A.
Mod).
