Aldo Carpi

Aldo Carpi (1886 - 1973) was an Italian artist, painter and writer, author of a collection of memoirs concerning his imprisonment in the infamous Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp.

Aldo Carpi was born in Milan on 6 October 1886, the fifth of seven children, by Amilcare Carpi and Giuseppina de 'Resmini

At twelve he is a spectator and participant of the workers' motions of 1898, of the arrests and repressions of Bava Beccaris

His father, a medical practitioner, has many patients in the art world and for this reason Aldo began to study in 1903 with the painter Stefano Bersani, mediator of Impressionistic influences

He joined the Brera Academy of Fine Arts in 1906 where he is a pupil of Cesare Tallone and Achille Cattaneo. He is a rookie of Funi, Gola and Carrà's courses. He collaborates with drawings in the Vita d'Arte magazine

The personality of the artist coincides with his "religious being." Important, between 1911 and 1913, is the experience at Crevenna, near Erba, next to Don Brizio Casciola, who had set up a "home for children Difficult and young problematic "or a farm colony organized to accommodate a group of children and young orphans of the Calabrian Sicilian earthquake, together with youthful situations in need of help and assistance

In 1912 he began his exhibitions at Brera and the Society for Fine Arts and Permanent Exhibition; In 1914 he was at the Biennale di Venezia, a manifestation to which he will participate almost uninterruptedly (except for the 1940 and 1950 editions)

He was married in 1915 to the Italian army during World War I, married Maria Arpesani in 1917 and has six children: Fiorenzo, Pinin, Giovanna, Cioni, Paolo and Piero

In 1918 he was awarded the Golden Medal of the Ministry of Education for drawings on the Serbian retreat and, embarked on the San Marco cruiser, took part in the action on Durazzo and landings in Pula and in River Rise, in 1919 he resumed the His activity as a painter

In the 1920s he was part of the twentieth century, albeit in a detached fashion

In 1925 he won the Prize Prince Umberto and from 1928 to 1930 he performed the stained glass windows for the Basilica of San Simpliciano in Milan

In 1930 he won the competition for the painting chair at the Accademia di Brera, where he moved to the Alciati and teaches them until 1958

With him he will work with four generations of artists from the current artists (Ennio Morlotti, Bruno Cassinari, Arnaldo Badodi, Italo Valenti, Aligi Sassu), to the group of "existential realism" in the 1950s (Bepi Romagnoni, Mino Ceretti, Tino Vaglieri, Giuseppe Guerreschi, Giuseppe Banchieri) His pupils include Giuseppe Bolzani, Emanuele Cavalli, Roberto Crippa, Otto Dobrazanski, Gianni Dova, Ibrahim Kodra, Trento Longaretti, Stefano Magnani, Cesare Peverelli, Dimitri Plescan, Alberto Salvioni, Pino Spinelli and many other Carpi A teacher particularly fond of students, each of whom leaves full freedom of expressive choice

In 1934 he began to dedicate himself to the stained-glass windows for the Milan Cathedral (work that will only be completed after the end of World War II). In 1937 he earned the gold medal at the Paris Universal Exposition

In January 1944, upon the dismissal of a colleague, he was arrested and deported to Mauthausen and then to Gusen: he was able to document life and death in the concentration camp with numerous sketches and a personal diary

Returning to Italy in 1945, he was accredited as director of the Accademia di Brera

In 1946 he realized the complex of frescoes in the church of Santa Maria del Suffragio in Milan

In 1947 founded the institution named "Opus Laus Mariae Braidensis", aimed at the economic support of Brera's artists and models students

In 1948 he was appointed Academician of the National Academy of St. Luke of Rome and member of the Superior Council for Fine Arts

In 1971 Garzanti publishes, twenty-five years after the facts reported in the text, the Gusen Diary, which in less than a year reaches the fourth edition

In 1972, Gusen's designs were exhibited at Gian Ferrari Gallery in Milan and then at San Vitale in Bologna. The City of Milan awarded him the gold medal for cultural merit and dedicated an anthological exhibition to the Rotonda della Besana, edited by Mario Michele dies of his wife Maria

In the spring of 1973, on March 27, at the age of 86, Aldo Carpi died in his home in Milan

After his death, his work was exhibited, among which the exhibition "Aldo Carpi Arte, vita, Resistenza" of 2015

Museums:
His work is preserved at the Cantonal Art Museum in Lugano, about 150 drawings of the period of imprisonment are part of the collection of the civic museum of Carpi of Castello dei Pio, the museum of the landscape of Verbana preserves its work, the Museum of the Risorgimento (Milan) preserves its works, the National Museum of Science and Technology Leonardo da Vinci conserves several of its works, the MA GA Gallarate Art Museum retains a painting by Carpi with which he participates in the Gallarate Prize, his works are present in the Art Collections The Cariplo Foundation, the Baroffio Museum and the Sacro Monte di Varese, at the Museum Foundation of the Shoah Rome, some works are in the art collection of the Maggiore Hospital in Milan, the Civic Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art Masnago Castle Preserve A painting by Carpi, his works are preserved at the museum of the CSAC (archives and communication center of Parma), is present in the collection of the Society for Fine Arts and Exposition And Permanent of Milan

In 1949 he became national academician of the inaugural National Academy Luigi Cherubini of Florence

Between 1953 and 1954 the realization of the windows for the chapel of Santa Teresa of Villa Clerici in Niguarda

He was awarded the "Fila Prize" in 1955 and held an important staff at the Milan Press Circle

The city of Milan in 1956 awarded him the gold medal for a well-deserved citizen. On the occasion of the 50 years of Carpi in Brera, an exhibition of the cycle of the Carabinieri is being celebrated. Celebrate this occasion together with Achille Funi

In 1958, the Brera Academy of Fine Arts awarded him the Gold Medal for Teacher Benefits Carpi is forced to leave the Academy for age limits despite attempts to extend his stay, as some documents show in the archive of the 'artist

1964 is the journey to the Holy Land that the artist performs following the pontiff Paolo VI in the same year is a personal exhibition of the artist at the L'Approdo di Torino Gallery

Between 1968 and 1969 he prepared and built six large mosaics for the Basilica of the Annunciation of Nazareth to celebrate the visit to the Holy Land of Pope Paul VI
http://hisour.com/artist/aldo-carpi/