Roberto Melli Biography
Roberto Melli (Ferrara, 21 March 1885 – Rome, 4 January 1958) was an Italian painter exponent of the Roman School. Roberto Melli was born in Ferrara to a family of merchants of Jewish origin and, having moved to Genoa in 1902 where his sister Rina Melli had recently moved, he began working as an apprentice carver, discovering his innate artistic talent. He met the poet Ceccardo Roccatagliata Ceccardi who introduced him to the Genoese cultural environment where he met the writer Camillo Sbarbaro and the sculptor Giovanni Prini. He also met the wood carver Carlo Turina; Thus began his activity as a xylographer. With this technique he collaborated in 1906 on the magazine Ebe (published in Chiavari by Sanguineti). He also dedicates himself to sculpture. He became friends with the Ferrarese painter and etchant Giorgio De Vincenzi and in 1910 he decided to go and live in Rome, where he shared the studio with Prini. The first painting works date back to Rome. In 1912 he married Anna Meotti, his girlfriend from his Ferrara years. Again in 1912 he exhibited at the 1st Italian xylography exhibition organized in Levanto by the magazine L'Eroica. In 1913 he exhibited sculptures at the 1st Exhibition and the following year at the 2nd Exhibition of the Roman Secession. He therefore actively participates in futurist demonstrations, a movement that will see him act as an autonomous and unpredictable outsider. In 1915, together with Costantini, Fioresi, Oppo and Pizzirani, he formed the "Gruppo Moderno Italiano" and in 1918 participated in the birth of the magazine and movement "Valori plastici". Called up to arms in 1916, he met de Chirico in Ferrara. Returning to Rome in 1917, he abandoned the practice of sculpture. He became friends with Giuseppe Capogrossi and Emanuele Cavalli, signed the "Manifesto of Plastic Primordialism", but after the personal exhibition in 1936 his exhibition activity was interrupted by the fascist racial laws which took away his right to participate in public exhibitions and to teach, contributing to plunge him into a deep crisis. His only relief remains the closeness of his wife, "the faithful Baba", as he himself liked to call her. Work resumed after the war in his three-room apartment in Testaccio, right in front of the Mattatoio, where every week he hosted a group of young painter friends such as Renato Guttuso, Enrico Accatino, Fausto Pirandello. In fact, in 1945 he began teaching painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome and returned to exhibit in some group and personal exhibitions. He is now considered one of the major exponents of "The Roman school" and in 1950 he was finally invited to the Venice Biennale, which dedicated a solo show to him. In recent years he continues his parallel activity as an artist and critic. In 1957 his volume of poems "Lunga favolosa notte" was published, a work of great depth that is now too forgotten. In 1958 the National Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art in Rome dedicated a retrospective to him, curated by Nello Ponente and Palma Bucarelli. He will die the same year, not far from Giacomo Balla.
