Pompeo Borra

Place: Milan

Born: 1898

Death: 1973

Biography:

Pompeo Borra was an Italian painter born in Milan in 1898. He studied at the Scuola degli Artefici at the Brera Academy and made his debut at the Famiglia Artistica in 1920. In 1924, he participated in the Esposizione Internazionale d’Arte in Venice, arousing the critics’ interest with his severe language derived from the Quattrocento. His archaic style drew him to the Novecento Italiano and he took part in all the group’s shows from 1926 onwards. In 1928, he showed works in the major exhibition of Italian art, curated by Franz Roh, the theorist of Magical Realism and German Neue Sachlichkeit. During the 1930s, he renewed his pictorial language by adopting a lighter and more luminous range of colours, without abandoning the solid volumes of his figures. His reputation as an artist became firmly established and he won the Principe Umberto Prize in 1934. Between 1936 and 1939, he made frequent stays in Paris where he came into contact with the art dealer Léonce Rosenberg. His painting was influenced by contemporary researches on abstract art resulting in a limited number of geometric works. He died in Milan in 1973.