Mannucci Cipriano

Cipriano Mannucci was born in Nice in 1882, but soon moved to Florence with his family.  At the beginning of the twentieth century, he attended the School of Santa Croce for Decorative and Industrial Arts. In 1908, debuted at the Promotrice in Florence with a Rustic sketch and in the period immediately following a long stay in Paris, where he remained until 1914.

Between landscapes and scenes: a loose and bright brushstroke

In these years, he actively participated in the Parisian cultural climate, exhibiting at the Salon, but at the same time continued to send his works in Italy. Cipriano Mannucci’s painting is moved by a feeling of vibrant poetry that can be read in the adoption of a loose and very bright brushstroke and in the choice of subjects taken from everyday life.

In his first production appear genre scenes as well as landscapes characterized by a cursive and wide stroke, but also female portraits of refined elegance that insert the painter in the context of the liberty taste. On some occasions, when he finds himself dealing with themes with more perturbing sensations, as occurs in the painting Towards the Light, he adopts long filaments of wavy color that bring him closer to Divisionism.

In this work, undoubtedly linked to the Symbolist sphere, he employs a dark chromatism crossed by sudden flashes of light, in the dramatic representation of an elegant struggle between life and death, which lurks silently behind the pale but fascinating woman dressed in white.

The production of portraits

After returning to Italy and with the end of the First World War, Cipriano Mannucci resumed exhibiting in Florence in 1920, with the Portrait of his daughter Dina. In 1923, with one of his most successful works, Ungrateful Age, he won the silver medal at the International Exhibition of Rio.

Between the twenties and thirties, is called to exhibit in London, Edinburgh, Brussels and Antwerp. In 1931 he participated in the I Quadrennial in Rome with Fisherman and Portrait, while the following year is the Regional Art Exhibition of Tuscany with Portrait of a lady with child and Portrait of a young lady and Portrait of a young girl. In the same year, is also at the Venice Biennale with Venezuelan Woman.

His success abroad is particularly significant: his paintings are requested by many American collectors, in fact, today in the United States are placed some of his allegorical compositions of liberty style, including the Great Triptych and The Triumph of the Right. Always focused on the use of brilliant tones, treated with a soft and quick touch, Cipriano Mannucci continued to exhibit until the 1940s, concentrating on the infinite facets of the female figure, declined according to the ethnic groups represented and the activities in which she is engaged: Range of White and Pink, In the Pine Forest, Tyrrhenian Peasant Woman, Gypsy, Tuscan Peasant Woman, Young Fisherman of Boccadasse, Harvest of Our People, Smile of Egizia, Carmela.

Elena Lago