Manlio Rho

(b Como, 5 Feb 1901; d Como, 7 Sept 1957). Italian painter and designer. He studied painting at the Scuole Techniche in Como (1918-23), where he met Giuseppe Terragni and Mario Radice. Attracted by Futurism, he taught painting at the Scuola di Arte Applicata (1919-37) and the Collegio 'Baragiola' (1920-28), Como, and became a poster designer and satirical cartoonist for La Zanzara (1922-4). As secretary to the Istituto Nazionale di Setificio (1923-9), he produced designs for silk, but his paintings (some pseudonymously signed Boroscki, Prague) remained rooted in Novecento classicism. In 1932 Rho followed Radice's adoption of finely poised geometric abstraction, and subsequently they encouraged younger artists, notably Carla Badiali (b 1907) and Aldo Galli (1906-81). They formed the Gruppo di Como with Terragni and other Rationalist architects and established links with the Galleria del Milione in Milan. In 1936 the group organized the abstract section of the Como Pittura moderna exhibition (Villa Olmo) and in 1938 joined the Valori Primordiali group. Rho's abiding concern was with formal balance and harmonious proportion inspired by nature. His compositions of tertiary-coloured rectangles cut by diagonals create a shallow space (e.g. Composition, 1933; Milan, Vismara col.), while the use of overlapping planes and dark grounds introduce transparency. After the difficulties experienced in producing abstract art under Fascism subsided in the post-war period, those associated with the Gruppo di Como were acknowledged as pioneers, and Rho's work reflected this sense of liberation. Without dispensing with geometrical rigour, he introduced curvilinear forms that seem to reconcile the irrational with the rational.

See the Abbreviations for further details.