Antonio Donghi

Antonio Donghi (Rome, March 16, 1897 – Rome, July 16, 1963) was one of the most important Italian painters of the 20th century, recognized as one of the leading exponents of Magic Realism. Born in Rome to Lorenzo, a fabric merchant from Lecco, and Ersilia de Santis, Donghi spent part of his childhood in a boarding school due to his parents’ separation, an experience that shaped his reserved and introverted character. He graduated in 1916 from the Regio Istituto di Belle Arti in Rome and, after military service in France, deepened his study of painting in the museums of Florence and Venice, focusing on the great masters of the 15th and 16th centuries.
Donghi made his debut in the 1920s, participating in the second Biennale di Roma in 1923 with works such as 'Nudo di donna', 'Lavandaie', and 'Carnevale', aligning himself with the cultural climate of Valori plastici, the magazine directed by Mario Broglio that opposed the historical avant-gardes. In 1924, he held his first solo exhibition and achieved his greatest success with a solo show in New York in 1927, where he sold numerous works and received international recognition, including an award at the Carnegie Institute in Pittsburgh. His works were acquired by major museum institutions such as the Museo d’Arte Moderna di Palazzo Pitti, the Musei Civici of Turin and Genoa, Ca’ Pesaro, and the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna in Rome.
In the 1930s, Donghi continued to work intensively, developing a style characterized by intimate interiors, suspended figures, and metaphysical atmospheres, blending neoclassicism with cultivated primitivism. From 1938, he taught at the Istituto di Belle Arti in Rome, where he had studied. His production ranges from scenes of everyday life to symbolic and surreal representations, with a constant attention to wonder and amazement that permeate reality. In the 1940s, his fame waned compared to the dominant currents of modernism, but he continued to exhibit regularly and influence the Italian art scene. Antonio Donghi is remembered as a master of 'calm, yet vaguely unsettling super-realism', with a unique stylistic signature that places him among the greats of Italian Magic Realism.