Luigi Mantovani Biography
Luigi Mantovani (Milan, 29 May 1880 – Milan, 25 September 1957) was an Italian painter. Encouraged by his father Giuseppe - who was an engraver - to cultivate painting, Luigi Mantovani enrolled at the Brera Academy of Fine Arts in 1896 and studied with Giuseppe Mentessi, Vespasiano Bignami and Cesare Tallone. He made his debut at the IV Esposizione Triennale di Brera, in 1900, with two landscape studies and began an exhibition activity which saw him continuously present at the exhibitions set up at the Milanese Artistic Family and at the Società per le Belle Arti ed Esposizione Permanente, establishing himself on the artistic scene in 1906, with participation in the International Exhibition of Milan. Starting from the 1920s he distinguished himself in the Milanese cultural circles: he was among the leaders of the Association of Lombard Watercolorists and of the "Milan Family" and was awarded a gold medal on the occasion of the exhibition dedicated to the Lombard landscape in 1926. his production of city views and landscapes is characterized by a bold brushstroke and the adoption of a clear and transparent chromatic range, which will become his characteristic feature. In the second half of the 1940s, coinciding with the resumption of exhibition activity, after the long suspension dictated by the Second World War, during which Luigi Mantovani continued to paint in the attic of his home in Milan - thanks to his patron Guido Snider, owner of an espresso coffee machine company - resumes his repertoire of Milanese and Venetian views, which had now become repetitive and conventional, but with a more fluid and loose pictorial technique.
