ATANASIO SOLDATI (1896-1953) Abstract composition

Signed and numbered ‘XIV Soldati’ (lower right) tempera on paper 32 x 25.5 cm Executed 1936 This work is created in 1936, the year when Atanasio Soldati joined the Paris based international group Abstraction - Création. Born in Parma, Soldati studied architecture at the Accademia di Belle Arte and practised as an architect. He started painting in 1920s and moved to Milan in 1925. Soldati had his first one - man show in 1931 at the Galleria Il Milione in Milan, where he had saw the abstract work of Mauro Reggiani and Gino Ghiringhelli. In the early 1930s, he studied Cubism and Purism, and learned the work of Kandinsky, Klee, and Picasso during his visit in Paris in 1933. Gradually his works became fully abstract. His work was in the linear abstraction vein of Mondrian and Vortemberge - Gildewart. During the war, his Milan studio was completely destroyed. He was a member of the Italian Resistance movement. He was one of the founders of M.A.C. (Movimento Arte Concreta) in 1948. Soldati was included in Arte ‘Astratta in Italia’, the major exhibition organised by The Art Club in the Galleria di Roma in 1948. At the 1952 Venice Biennale Soldati was given a separate exhibition room.