Donato Frisia Artwork valuations, appraisals and auction estimates

He was born on August 30th. Created in 1883 in Melate in the province of Como by Costantino, a building builder and decorator with a strong history of revival movements, and Giuseppina Grancini, a rich family of Milanese merchants. Read the full biography

He was born on August 30th. Created in 1883 in Melate in the province of Como by Costantino, a building builder and decorator with a strong history of revival movements, and Giuseppina Grancini, a rich family of Milanese merchants. He began collaborating with his father at a young age at a noble villa in Brianza, where he had the opportunity to observe the work of E. Gola, which led him to painting.

After studying R. Brambilla's courses at the Melart School of Painting, from 1905 he studied at the Brera Academy of Fine Arts in Milan, following courses in sculpture (E. Butti), painting (C. Tallone) and architecture (C .Boito). Over time his interests became clearer: in 1908 he obtained the qualification for sculpture courses and two years later for painting, while he handed over his third license. In Milan in 1910, in an exhibition organized by Permanente, he exhibited a clear painting of Talon origin, but with a personal accent in the use of colour, The Blind Cellist (1909), which he showed as a genius. on the skills of a colorist, was recognized by such renowned artists as G. Previati, A. Morbelli, V. Grubicy and others. 1910 is also the year of the meeting with Gola, with whom F. becomes not a disciple, but an equally significant partnership; the works in close contact with the older artist - educated and updated on the European situation - broaden his horizons and free him from the rigorous teaching of Talon's realism.

A stable member since 1910 (he will participate in all subsequent exhibitions of the institution), in 1912 F. was appointed honorary member of Brera. The following year he participated in the Munich Quadrennial as the official representative for Italy, where he exhibited several paintings, including a portrait of his father (Milan, Pinacoteca Ambrosiana). The marriage to Maria Galli dates back to the same 1913, from which five children were born (Bruno, Costanza, Emilio, Lucia and Luisa). In 1914 he participated for the first time in the Venice Biennale - where he exhibited almost continuously until 1950 - showing an unidentified pastel.

In the panorama of pre-war Italian painting, his figure appears consistently inclined towards an autonomous line, as evidenced by his refusal to join the separatist movement (he did not accept Grubici's invitation to join), with futurist proposals and equally gradual departures from the Goliath curriculum , as the painter needed the constructive solidity gained from his sculptural experience. This material composition created works such as Al front: cargo of wood, a painting executed during the war and Il valloncello (Mascherpa, 1975, p. 11) which always speaks of the pioneers of informal painting, in particular E. Morlotti .F. Painting Institute The characteristic smell of plastic was destined to become more distinct in the years between the two wars.

In this period the artist actively devoted himself to landscapes (performed live, without constantly inserted stylistic filters, for example A. Tosi) as well as still lifes and portraits. Precisely in these last two schools this required a slower and more thoughtful elaboration and, therefore, allowed him to carry out greater decantation, which F. believed (Radice, 1954) obtained superior results to those of the landscape architects. A fidelity to nineteenth-century portraiture, which sometimes leads one to see F. as a follower of the so-called Lombard impressionists, does not mean sticking to the formal ways of the nineteenth century. His paintings are distinguished by their slight dryness (dominated by the dull tones of lime white and natural earth in the Frisian palette, the traditional colors of the fresco technique), strong outlines, the abolition of shades, the abuse of chiaroscuro: all these elements help to overcome the remains of romanticism in favor of more modern expressive forms.
With new aesthetic needs, F. had the opportunity to deal with it in 1919, his first year in Paris (almost every two years until 1949), during which, as a guest of A. Bucci, he formed a brief but strong friendship with A.. Modigliani, who painted it in three paintings. In the French capital F. also frequented P. Picasso and G. Braque, appreciating them when he felt their distance from his own poetic world, but the plasticity of space in his landscapes, some of the "Slippery Plane" still lifes, a sometimes scandalous study of technology, denounces the involvement with the Parisian environment. From this moment on, trips to the main European capitals and the Mediterranean have multiplied (as well as frequent and long-term stops in Venice and Portofino). In Malta in 1932 he received the task, together with R. De Grada and E. Paolucci, to execute a series of watercolors on behalf of the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, today preserved at the British Museum in Valletta and at the Municipal Art Gallery Modern Rome...

This public commission is part of a series of official prizes: from the Principe Umberto Prize of Milan (1922 for a portrait of a woman) to the E. Mortara Prize of Florence (1924, IV S. Ussi competition) for a pregnant woman and her family , in Gold Medals at the National Exhibition of Landscape Art in Bologna in 1927 and 1929; from the Self-portrait of Milan (1932), the prize at the Museo della Moderne in Milan, to the silver medal at the Universal Exposition of Paris (1937) for the Pink Figure (Monza, Civic Museum), up to the G. Ricci Prize of Brera (1939), awarded to the painter by a jury composed of C. Carrà and A. Soffici - like U. Lilloni. F. has participated in the Quadrennial of Rome since the first one (1931), the National Gallery of Modern Art in Rome and the Galleria Comunale of Milan in the capital have purchased his works, once again attesting to the fame and esteem he enjoys F., Turin, and finally Numerous personal exhibitions in prestigious galleries (Pesaro, Barbarux, Gian Ferrari in Milan), but above all the one organized in 1941 by the permanent Milanese organization, with a committee composed of A. Carpi and A. Martini, collaborated with F. to select the 140 works on display. F. also regularly participated in the exhibitions organized by the Fascist Fine Arts Union: both in the regional exhibitions (from 1928 in Milan in parallel with the annual permanent exhibition), and in the national exhibition in Florence in 1933, where he exhibited the Dissonanze and Siracusa ( Catalano, p. 33) and Milan (1941).

Far from the logic of the group - he does not adhere to the twentieth century and the idealized climate is alien to him - despite his apparent isolation, in reality F. can count on a common moral attitude based on professional friendship to address the problem of painting. Starting from the 1930s, figures such as U. Lilloni, A. Savinio, E. Treccani, B. Cassinari, E. Morlotti frequented his house, and it is precisely in the network of contacts established by him between artists of different orientations that the character he must be a recognized historian of Brianza painters. In this regard, it is worth remembering how he became a supporter of the Bergamo Prize and participated in the review of all four editions (1939-42); in 1940, for the composition of this painting (location unknown), he received the second prize Awards - M. Mafai in 1st place and R. Guttuso in 3rd place - awarded by C. Carrà, O. Roussey and GC Argan. In 1942 he participated in the XXIII Venice Biennale, exhibiting 27 works, including 1933 Landscapes of Constantinople: Bosphorus (Piacenza, Riccodie) Gallery of Modern Art).

F. had another positive meeting with U. Lilloni, E. Treccani, R. De Grada, D. Cantatore, A. Spilimbergo after the Second World War. These artists meet every year in Bardonecchia, as guests of the hotelier Renato Perego, to study the local landscape.

F. dies in Melate on 13 December. 1953: The following year a retrospective of his work was held in Milan and in 1956 an anthology was held in Rome as part of the Quadrennial.