Carlo Socrate Biography
Carlo Socrate (1889 - 1967) Born in Padua, son of actors, he lived in Argentina until the age of nine. Returning to Italy, he attended the free school of the nude in Florence, and in 1914 he was in Rome, where a year later he began studying at Villa Strohl-Fern. In this first phase he is attentive to Cézanne, who he can see at the Secession exhibitions, and looks to Spadini, an important figure in the Roman pictorial culture of those years. In 1917 he worked in Diaghilev's Russian Dance company, collaborated on the scenography of Las Meninas (music by Fauré, choreography by Massine) and prepared Léon Bakst's scenes for Les femmes de bonne humeur. In this period he met Picasso, whom he followed to Paris, collaborating with him on the scenes of Parade (music by Satie, libretto by Cocteau, choreography by Massine). During his stay in Paris he met Derain and other exponents of the cultural environment. With Picasso he went to Barcelona and Madrid, where together they visited the Prado. Returning to Italy, in 1918 he exhibited at the Casina Valadier al Pincio. In 1926 Roberto Longhi dedicated a monograph to him. Manet, Courbet, Ingres, Titian, Caravaggio intertwine in a complex web of references to establish themselves in a motionless, magical timelessness. After Bearer of Fruit (1924), which is among his masterpieces, at the Milanese exhibition of the Italian Twentieth Century he exhibited the Hunters (1925), a painting of particular commitment. Until his death, his work tended to repeat, but lightened, the same characteristic motifs, losing the tension that had stimulated his previous research. In the years between the two wars Socrates exhibited mainly in public exhibitions: with the "Valori Plastici" group he was present at the "Primaverile fiorentina" of 1922. He was invited to the various exhibitions of the "Novecento Italiano", in 1931 he was present with a vast solo exhibition at the first edition of the Quadrennial.
