Eugenio Viti

Born in Naples in 1881, Eugenio Viti trained at the Institute of Fine Arts in Naples, where he graduated in 1906. Initially, his works show a debt to the painting of Cammarano and Mancini and the 17th century. Later, however, he updated himself to post-Impressionism of international stature when he joined Edgardo Curcio and Arturo Bacio Terracina in Rome in 1907. In 1909 he was one of the organisers of the I Youth Exhibition in Naples within the ‘Secessione dei 23’, emerging above all for the luministic effects of works such as Vigil, The Moody, and the landscape Twilight. In 1910 he participated in the Universal Exhibition in Brussels with the painting Woman Playing the Violin, purchased by the organising committee, and in the Buenos Aires exhibition. A fundamental stage in his stylistic growth was the International Exhibition in Rome in 1911, where he was able to confront himself with international trends and with Secessionist, Post-Impressionist and Symbolist artists including Klimt, Hodler, Ensor and Zorn. Viti was involved not only with the decoration of the eight lunettes of the Campania, Basilicata and Calabria pavilion in the ethnographic section, but also with the two paintings Villanella and In the Park (later exhibited at the Neapolitan Promotrice in 1912) and with the friezes of the Circolo dei Forestieri in Valle Giulia. It was at this juncture that Viti began to deal with female representation influenced by English portraiture.

Elegance combined with a calibrated and lyrical luminism that he carried on as his signature style until the 1920s and beyond. During these years, his painting activity was divided between decorative works, religious painting and secessionist paintings with experimental forays into pointillism, which at times turned into a fauve expressionism that was highly appreciated both in Italy and abroad. Backlight of 1920 is an example of this magical production: exhibited and then conserved at the Circolo Artistico Politecnico in Naples, as is Autumn. Between the two wars, Viti’s success grew steadily between Naples and national exhibitions, including the Florentine Spring Exhibition in Florence in 1922, where he presented Aurora, Far, Gypsy and Rock of the Sirens. In 1929 he participated in the Universal Exhibition in Barcelona, in 1931 in the Italian Week in Athens, and then in various Italian exhibitions abroad, including Berlin (1932), Vienna (1933), Munich and New York (1933), and Pittsburgh (1934). In these exhibitions at the turn of the twenties and thirties, Viti’s departure from the Neapolitan tradition of the 19th century and his full adhesion to the Novecento debate, which in some cases took on the appearance of metaphysical atmospheres, especially in the treatment of light and chiaroscuro, became clear. Attending all the trade union exhibitions in Naples (from 1929 to 1943), as well as many editions of the Quadriennale in Rome and the Venice Biennale, in these years he made the female figure central, which he treated with introspective delicacy and chromatic sensitivity, skilfully combining Art Nouveau reminiscences with the balanced silence of a return to order. Also active in the fields of set design, decoration and advertising graphic arts, he illustrated books for the publishers Casella and Carabba. After World War II, he taught at the Naples Art Institute and held several one-man shows from 1945 to 1948 at the Forti Gallery. In 1950 he was awarded the Einaudi National Prize for painting and in 1951 took part in his last Quadriennale in Rome. He died in 1952. In 1954, a retrospective exhibition was dedicated to him at the Venice Biennale.

Elena Lago