Giorgio de Chirico

Early Years and the Birth of Metaphysical Painting (1888–1914)

Giorgio de Chirico was born on July 10, 1888, in Volos, Greece, to Italian parents. From a young age he devoted himself to drawing, studying at the Athens Polytechnic (1903–1906) and then at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich, where he became acquainted with the Symbolist art of Böcklin and Klinger and the philosophy of Nietzsche and Schopenhauer. Returning to Italy in 1909, he began to develop a pictorial language shaped by melancholy and a sense of enigma, which found full expression in Florence in 1910 with his first works of Metaphysical painting (pittura metafisica).

In 1911 he moved to Paris, where he developed his famous cycle of Piazze d’Italia (Italian Piazzas), with their silent architecture, long shadows and solitary statues. From 1914, the first mannequins appeared in his paintings, soon to become one of the defining symbols of Metaphysical art. He exhibited at the Salon d’Automne (1912) and the Salon des Indépendants (1913), attracting the attention of Picasso, Apollinaire and the dealer Paul Guillaume.

Ferrara and the Metaphysical Interiors (1915–1918)

In 1915, called back to Italy with his brother Alberto Savinio, he settled in Ferrara, where he met Filippo de Pisis and began the cycle of Interni metafisici (Metaphysical Interiors). Some of his most celebrated masterpieces date from these years, including Hector and Andromache and The Disquieting Muses. In 1917 he came into contact with Carlo Carrà and the Dada milieu.

Rome, Valori Plastici and the Return to Classicism (1919–1924)

In 1919 he moved to Rome and held his first solo exhibition at the Casa d’Arte Bragaglia. During this period he rediscovered the great masters in museums and began copying Italian Renaissance painters, starting a phase of classicist research. In the 1920s he wrote for various magazines, including “Valori Plastici”, publishing essays on ancient and modern artists. In 1922 the Galerie Paul Guillaume in Paris held a major solo exhibition of fifty-five of his works. In 1924 he took part in the 14th Venice Biennale.

Paris, Mediterranean Myth and the Break with the Surrealists (1925–1935)

In 1925 he settled in the French capital. During these years he began his research into the Metaphysics of Light and Mediterranean Myth, giving rise to themes such as the Archeologi (Archaeologists), Cavalli in riva al mare (Horses by the Sea), Trofei (Trophies), Paesaggi nella stanza (Landscapes in a Room), Mobili nella valle (Furniture in the Valley) and Gladiatori (Gladiators). At a solo exhibition at the Galerie Léonce Rosenberg, the Surrealists harshly criticised his most recent works. The rift with the group became total and worsened in the years that followed. He exhibited in Italy and abroad, in Paris, Berlin, Hamburg, Amsterdam, Brussels, London and New York. In these years he painted still lifes (which he called vite silenti, “silent lives”), portraits and female nudes of luminous naturalism. He exhibited at the 18th Venice Biennale in the room dedicated to the Italian artists of Paris, among them Massimo Campigli and Gino Severini.

In 1930 he met Isabella Pakszwer, who remained at his side for the rest of his life, and with her he moved to Florence for a year. In 1933 he took part in the 5th Milan Triennale, for which he painted the monumental fresco La cultura italiana (Italian Culture), and later in the 2nd Rome Quadriennale.

The War Years and the Return to Rome (1936–1947)

In 1936 he moved to the United States. He returned to Italy in 1938, then left again for Paris, disgusted by the racial laws. In Florence, during the war years, he was hosted by his friend the antiquarian Luigi Bellini, together with Isabella, a Russian-Jewish woman born in Warsaw. He wrote numerous theoretical articles for various periodicals, later collected in Commedia dell’arte moderna (Rome, 1945) together with essays from the “Valori Plastici” period of the early 1920s. In 1944 he settled permanently in Rome. He intensified his study of the Old Masters, painting copies after Titian, Rubens, Delacroix, Watteau, Fragonard and Courbet.

The Fight Against Forgeries and Neo-Metaphysics (1948–1978)

From 1948 he lived with Isa on Piazza di Spagna, in the apartment now open to the public as the Giorgio de Chirico House Museum. He waged a fierce battle against forgeries of his works, a problem dating back to the mid-1920s. In 1948 he was admitted to the Royal Society of British Artists, and in 1950 he organised an “Antibiennale” in Venice in protest against the official art system.

In his later years he developed what became known as Neo-Metaphysics, reworking the classic themes of his art in brighter tones: piazzas, mannequins, interiors and archaeologists. In 1970 Palazzo Reale in Milan dedicated a major retrospective to him. Giorgio de Chirico died in Rome on November 20, 1978, at the age of 90. In 1986 his wife Isa established the Fondazione Giorgio e Isa de Chirico, which protects his work and legacy.

In 2023 Repetto Gallery devoted the exhibition Giorgio de Chirico, in the Mirror of the Twentieth Century to the artist. For information on available works by Giorgio de Chirico, contact the gallery.