Achille Funi

(Ferrara 1890 – Appiano Gentile 1972)

Portrait of sister, 1921

Oil on panel, 49.5 x 39.5 cm

Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art “Filippo de Pisis,” inv. 0671

My sister, c. 1921

Oil on canvas, 60.5 x 44.5 cm

Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art “Filippo de Pisis,” inv. 0674

Achille Funi’s two portraits of his sister were made by the artist in 1921, a crucial year in Italy for the definition of modern classicism in artistic endeavors that stood in relation to the art of the past. In 1920, in fact, Funi sanctioned the break with his previous Futurist experiences by signing the Manifesto against all returns to painting, focusing his research on themes of composition and plastic solidity and devoting himself to the study of Italian Renaissance art. The years between 1920 and 1923 were marked by a personal interpretation of magic realism, characterized by iconographic schemes inspired by Renaissance painting that infused an alienating aura of temporal suspension to the depiction of everyday life. Marguerite was the artist’s favorite model and was portrayed within a sober 15th-century compositional framework. The pose with crossed arms and the noble features of the Portrait of sister conceal references to Leonardo da Vinci, a master from whom Funi was constantly inspired throughout his career. This work features a highly accurate technique that defines forms through delicate chiaroscuro: the woman appears in all her grace but with a distant, melancholy gaze that infuses the painting with an intimate, indecipherable atmosphere.

The dialogue between learned quotations and everyday reality appears most evident in the second portrait, in which the figure of the sister is inscribed in a context characterized both by neo-Renaissance elements, such as the lateral perspective breakthrough or the balustrade on which the vase rests, and by references to the contemporary. Margherita, in fact, is shot in an informal style, and the window hints at a modern urban foreshortening animated by the transit of a motorcycle. The two paintings were acquired by the artist’s heirs in 1976, thus adding to the nucleus of works by Achille Funi owned by the city.