Achille Funi

(b Ferrara, 26 Feb 1890; d Appiano Gentile, nr Como, 26 July 1972). Italian painter and teacher. He attended the Scuola Municipale d'Arte Dosso Dossi, Ferrara (1902-5), and studied under Cesare Tallone at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera, Milan (1906-10). Influenced by meeting Umberto Boccioni and Carlo Carr?, he formed the Gruppo Nuove Tendenze with Anselmo Bucci (1887-1955) and Leonardo Dudreville (1885-1975) and the architects Antonio Sant'Elia and Mario Chiattone. Funi adopted Boccioni's and Carr?'s dynamic style (e.g. Man Getting Off a Tram, 1914; Milan, Gal. A. Mod.) and in 1915 volunteered to serve in World War I with other Futurists. This interruption allowed him to reassess Futurism. Influenced by the circle of Fascist intellectuals around Margherita Sarfatti, he developed an allusive realism (e.g. Self-portrait, 1918; priv. col., see 1973 exh. cat., fig. 7), which, in the manifesto Contro tutti ritorni in pittura (1920), he and Mario Sironi distinguished from the prevalent archaism. In 1922, with Sironi, Bucci, Dudreville and others, he formed the Sette Pittore del Novecento, exhibiting at the Galleria Pesaro, Milan, in 1922. The following year the Sette Pittore developed into the NOVECENTO ITALIANO, and further shows were held at the Galleria Pesaro, and in 1924 at the Venice Biennale. Funi treated contemporary subjects with an idealizing Renaissance realism, as in Maternity (1921; Turin, priv. col., see 1973 exh. cat., fig. 16).

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