Fortunato Depero Biography | Oil Painting Reproductions

Fortunato Depero was a very multi-talented man, being a Futurist painter, writer, sculptor, and graphic designer. His interest in poetry gave rise to many publications which enable him to be considered, not only an awesome painter but also a standout among the fascinating Italian writers and poets of the early twentieth century.

Fortunato Depero grew up in Rovereto a small town in northeast Italy, and it was here he started showing his art, while his job was as an apprentice to a marble worker. It was on a 1913 excursion to Florence that he discovered an article in a paper by Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, one of the founders of the Futurism movement. Depero was motivated and moved to Rome shortly thereafter to meet fellow futurist Giacomo Balla. In 1919 Depero founded the "Casa d'Arte Futurista" (House of Futurist Art) in Rovereto, which specialized in producing creating toys, embroidered works of art, and furniture in the futurist style. Some of his toys became paintings, in this amusing painting My Plastic Dancers, Depero creates the idea of mechanical ballerinas and marionettes on stage. After the first period of Futurism came to an end, swept away by World War I, Depero kept the joyful utopia of the Futurist Reconstruction of the Universe alive, thanks to his exceptional talent for the applied arts.

In 1925 he represented the Futurists at the Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes. He decided to move to New York City in 1928, and here he experienced some degree of success, doing costumes for stage productions and also designing covers for The New Yorker and Vogue magazine, among others.

Two years later he returned to Italy and continued working in a Futurist style but in the 1930s and 40s Futurism was unjustly linked with fascism, and the art movement started to wane. The artistic development of the movement in this period can be attributed to him and Balla. After the end of the Second World War, Fortunato Depero experienced difficulty with the authorities in Italy and in 1947 decided to try New York once more. This time he found the reception colder and not quite as inviting. So he left the city and up to 1949 Fortunato Depero lived in a small cottage in New Milford, Connecticut, relaxing and continuing with his long-standing plans to open a museum. He left the USA and returned to his hometown, where he would live out his days. In 1959, a year before his death, Galleria Museo Depero opened, satisfying one of his long-term dreams.

Art Movement: Futurism.
He Traveled To USA.
Artist's Biography compiled by Albert L. Mansour at The World's Artist, with text adapted from Wikipedia.