Oscar Ghiglia Biography
Oscar Ghiglia was born in Livorno on 23 August 1876.
After his first self-taught experiments, he attended the studios of Manaresi and Guglielmo Micheli, where he established lasting friendships with Llewelyn Lloyd, Antony De Witt and Modigliani.
With the latter he established a strong friendship, guided by the common desire to escape the restricted artistic scene of Livorno and seek more stimulating horizons. In 1902, the two settled together in Florence, in via San Gallo. In that period, Ghiglia attended the Scuola Libera di Nudo, on the advice of Fattori.
In 1901, he made his debut at the Venice Biennale with a self-portrait that demonstrates a romantic and internationalist approach, with various symbolist echoes, from Bocklin to Costetti. In the following years he exhibited at the Primavera Fiorentina (1903 and 1903) and again at the Biennale (1903).
The first years of the century were very important for Ghiglia: through Costetti and Cimento, he explored the symbolist themes of Bocklin and von Stuck, and met Papini, Ojetti and Ardengo Soffici. It is precisely through the latter that Ghiglia became interested in the French neo-traditionalists, meeting them on the occasion of exhibitions in Venice between 1905 and 1907.
We can thus perceive in Ghiglia a progressive effort at integration between the Tuscan "maquis" and the synthetic Cezannian architecture, sharpened in the years 1913-14 coinciding with the synthetic-classical interpretation of Fattori and with the new review of the Impressionists in the Roman secession ( 1914).
In 1921, Ugo Ojetti, who presented him in "Dedalo" (1920), included him in the collective "Contemporary Italian Art" at the Pesaro Gallery in Milan; after participating in the historic Mostra del Novecento Italiano in 1926, Ghiglia returned to Pesaro for his solo exhibition. From that moment, he closed himself in a progressive isolation which led him to the production of works with intimate tones and refined elegance. He died in Florence in 1945.
