Fortunato Depero

This gorgeous, clothbound, nearly 500-page volume presents a generous overview of one of the Futurist movement's most prolific and visionary figures. Fortunato Depero announced his allegiance to the Futurist cause with the manifesto "Futurist Reconstruction of the Universe" (coauthored with Giacomo Balla), and went on to attempt exactly that, traversing all disciplines—painting, sculpture, theatre and set design, poetry, graphic design, textiles and toy design—and infusing them with Futurism's joyous, energetic color palette and embrace of mechanization and speed. Depero was a pioneer in several fields: he created one of the first artist's museums, several classic artist's books (such as his famous "bolted book" of 1927) and the first artist's "factory"—the Casa d'Arte Futurista in Rovereto, Italy, which produced toys, tapestries and furniture in the Futurist style. He was also very successful as a graphic designer, and his 1932 bottle design for Campari Soda is still in production. Surveying over 300 works from the gamut of his vast output, Futurist Depero is a wonderful, rich celebration of this fascinating Futurist protagonist.

Fortunato Depero (1892–1960) encountered Futurism on a visit to Florence in 1913 and quickly became one of its leading exponents. In 1928 Depero relocated to New York, the city he called the New Babel, where he lived and worked between 1928 and 1930, designing costumes for stage productions, covers for magazines including The New Yorker and Vogue, and opening the Depero Futurist House. He returned to the US in 1947, living in New Milford, Connecticut from March 1948 to October 1949, where he wrote his autobiography, So I Think, So I Paint. His works were featured prominently in the 2014 Guggenheim exhibition Italian Futurism and The Museum of Modern Art's Inventing Abstractions.