Primo Conti Biography
Umberto Primo Conti (Florence, 16 October 1900 – Fiesole, 12 November 1988) was an Italian painter, composer and writer. Already at the age of eight he began to take an interest in painting, and a self-portrait he painted at the age of 11 had considerable success among critics. In 1913 he composed the musical work Romanza for violin and piano and had a first meeting with the Florentine futurists, which gave Conti an interest in the style of the movement, which grew until 1917, when he met Giacomo Balla in Rome and Filippo Tommaso Marinetti in Naples, he decided to join the Futurist Movement. He made his fundamental contribution to Futurism with the paintings and drawings made between 1917 and 1919, the year in which his style evolved towards a metaphysical vision. In 1930 he married Munda Cripps, with whom he had two daughters; in these years his works drew inspiration from family life: Little Girl and Butterfly; Little girl with rubber rabbit; Portrait of his wife; Fruit from above; Naked. From 1935 to 1939 he collaborated with the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino with sets, sketches and costumes; in 1941 he became professor of painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Florence. From 1947 to 1957 he was president of the Society of Fine Arts and in this capacity he promoted its merger (29 October 1957) with the Circolo degli Artisti di Firenze - Casa di Dante, chaired by the lawyer Renato Zavataro who then assumed the presidency from 1958 to 1960. Between 1948 and 1963 he experienced a profound mystical vocation and became part of the Franciscan Order. In 1983 he published his autobiography entitled The Blackbird's Throat. In the meantime, in 1980, with the donation of his villa in Fiesole, his collection of pictorial works and his archive, he had prefected the creation of a Foundation dedicated to the historical avant-garde, which still manages the Primo Conti Museum today.
