Gianni Ghelfi Biography
Gianni Ghelfi was born in Pontermoli in 1919. He arrived in Brescia with his family in the 1920s; following his older brothers, he enters the group that meets to discuss painting, in the objective weariness of the formalism into which Novecento Italiano had slipped. He belongs to the post-war generation, Gianni Ghelfi, although with a very precocious talent, following in the footsteps of his brothers Augusto (the painter) and Luigi (the professor), appears on the Brescia art scene at the end of the 1930s, characterized by an expressionist recovery, which manifests itself through the acquisition of decomposed forms and the accentuation of colours; today we do not possess works by authors like Gianni, dating back to that period. His contribution in the following season was significant, when, once the storm of the terrible World War had passed, the friends met again, they absolutely wanted painting to accelerate its course, overcoming the delays which still keep it within the perimeters of tradition: Oltre Guernica, Fronte Nuovo delle Arti, Il 45, Nuova Secessione Artistica, are the titles of the associations and magazines, born and died in the space of one morning, which translate this desire, widespread throughout the territory ; in the same way, the great exhibitions of the «Fronte Nuovo» in Milan (summer 1947) and of the new abstractionism («Forma» in Rome and exhibition in Palazzo Reale in Milan) prelude the developments that culminated in the 1948 Biennale, which officially reopened the exhibition activity in our country.
