Riccardo Galli (Italian painter, 1869-1944)

Riccardo Galli was an Italian painter and illustrator.

Riccardo Galli was born in Milan in 1869, as well as a painter he was also a poet and illustrator for well-known magazines of the time and for the publisher Ricordi and musician. He was a pupil of Giuseppe Bertini (painter) at the Brera Academy.

His painting at the beginning was inspired by life and which found its themes in peasant and countryside life. A painting built with color superimposed in dense brushstrokes and which was directed by patriotic ideals towards Lombard naturalism.

This interest in a painting inspired by the real and in the accentuated use of color led him to frequent the studio of Mosè Bianchi and the cafes in Milan where the paintings of Lombard naturalists such as Emilio Gola and Eugenio Gignous were exhibited at the time.

The production of peasant inspiration combined with a notable production of portraits.

Over time his painting will transform and his colors will tend to become brighter so much so thathis pictorial research, in the course of the twenties, moves towards more evident luministic effects, (..) already present in his first productions becoming gradually more directed to the late nineteenth-century portrait.

Exhibitions

He began his exhibition activity at the Triennale di Brera in 1887 where he exhibited again in 1890, among other things he exhibited at the National Exhibition of Florence in 1927, at the Quadrennial in Turin in 1928, at the 1st biennial in Naples, he also participated six times in 1905, 1912, 1920, 1922, 1924, 1926 at the Venice International Art Exhibition.

Museums and galleries

10 works can be found in the Art Collections of the Ospedale Maggiore, one of his Lombard countryside laundresses is in the collection of the Banco Popolare di Milano, Il Comanducci reports the news of several of his works preserved at the museum of modern art of Milan including a portrait of Vittorio Emanuele III and the Portrait of the painter Ludovico Cavalleri and a work Oro e Azzurro which is located in the Museum of Buenos Aires, one of his works is located at the hospital service company Golgiredaelli, his work is present in the patrimony of the institute of the blind in Milan. | Source: © Italian Wikipedia

Riccardo Galli (Milano, 1869 - Barzio, Como, 1944), allievo del pittore Giuseppe Bertini a Milano, all'Accademia di Brera, fu personaggio di rilievo dell’ambiente culturale cittadino: animatore della Famiglia Artistica e della Famiglia Meneghina, promotore della Società degli Acquarellisti, fu anche illustratore, poeta dialettale e musicista.

Come pittore esordì a Brera nel 1887 ed in quella sede tornò ad esporre paesaggi (1890, Alla riva di Bellera- Musso, Lago di Como) e soprattutto ritratti, facendo uso anche del pastello (Ritratto dell'amico Cavaleri, esposto a Torino nel 1898; La marchesa Eva Parravicini- Persia, esposto a Milano nel 1900).

Nel 1896 Galli espose alla Biennale di Brera il grande ritratto a pastello della moglie che, per la qualità artistica, gli valse, a 27 anni, la nomina a socio onorario dell’Accademia. L’opera è ora esposta nella quadreria dell’Ospedale Maggiore di Milano.

Invitato per molti anni alle più importanti esposizioni italiane ed estere, l’artista milanese elaborò una vasta e impegnativa produzione di paesaggi, da quelli di montagna alle capitali europee, concludendo la sua intensa vita artistica con forme pittoriche che si sono via via discostate dalle quelle tradizionali ottocentesche per traghettarsi in un misurato e realistico modernismo.

Sue opere si conservano a Milano nella Quadreria dell’Ospedale Maggiore; un Ritratto di Vittorio Emanuele II si trova nella Galleria d’Arte Moderna.