Luigi Veronesi

Luigi Veronesi (28 May 1908 – 25 February 1998) was an Italian photographer, painter, scenographer and film director born in Milan.

Early career Luigi Veronesi trained as textile designer in the 1920s and by practised photography. He was introduced by Raffaelle Giolli to a group of Italian intellectuals associated with the review Poligono. At the age of 20, he became interested in painting and took lessons with the Neapolitan painter Carmelo Violante, then professor at the Accademia Carrara of Bergamo (Italy). In 1932 he travelled to Paris and met Fernand Léger. In 1934, he exhibited xylographic works with the German artist Josef Albers in the Gallery Il Milione. In the same year he joined the photographic group Abstraction-Création in Paris, experimented in constructivism, and adhered to the Bauhaus method.

Veronesi's interest in music continued, creating a polydimensionality in his art intended as an overall theme, and his research into the mathematical relationships of musical notes intensified as he translated musical notes into tonal relationships of colour. He thus created numerous chromatic transpositions of musical scores. In the late 1990s, the musician Sergio Maltagliati expanded on Veronesi's research.

After World War II, he was the co-founder of the photographic group La Bussola. He participated to the exhibition Arte astratta arte concreta in the Royal Palace of Milan (Palazzo Reale) in 1947 and adhered to the Movimento Arte Concreta (M.A.C.) in Milan in 1949. He worked several years as graphic designer.

Theatre and cinema Veronesi was also active in theatre and cinema with nine experimental and abstract films made between 1938 and 1980, seven of which were destroyed during bombing in World War II.

Luigi Veronesi was a polyvalent and eclectic artist who managed to synthesise the avant-garde movements of various regions of Europe. He died in Milan in 1998.

Retrospective exhibitions Royal Palace of Milan (Palazzo Reale di Milano) Institut Matildenhöhe, Darmstadt Sprengel Museum, Hannover Stiftung für konstruktive und konkrete Kunst, Zurich