(b Milan, 17 July 1912). Italian painter, printmaker and sculptor. The son of the Sardinian Socialist Antonio Sassu, he was largely self-taught and admired the work of Delacroix and Renoir. At 16 Sassu exhibited the geometrized Man Drinking at the Spring (1928; artist's col.) at the Venice Biennale of 1928 and participated in Futurist exhibitions. Around 1930, with Raffaele de Grada and Renato Birolli, he was influenced by the idealist aesthetics of Edoardo Persico. As a result Sassu opposed Novecento classicism with a loose, painterly treatment of intensely coloured figures. His series alternated between the archaizing nudes of Red Men (1931; artist's col.) and the contemporary life of Caff? (1934; Milan, Alfredo Paglione priv. col., see 1984 exh. cat., p. 40). The latter was painted in Paris, where he exhibited in 1934 (Gal. Quatre Chemins) with Francis Gruber and Fiorenzo Tomea and met L?ger, Magnelli and de Pisis.

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