Lorenzo Viani

Portrait - Woodcut by Lorenzo Viani - 1930

1930s

Active in Viareggio in the first half of the 20th century, he is regarded as one of the greatest exponents of Italian expressionism. Lorenzo Viani was born in Viareggio on 1 November in Via della Fornace where he spent his childhood between the docks and the palace. He attended primary schools, but only up to the third grade In 1893, he was put to work in the workshop of barber Fortunato Primo Puccini, where he met painter Plinio Nomellini, who had a positive influence on his artistic maturation, and on his advice, he enrolled at the Academy of Fine Arts in Lucca. In 1904, he was admitted to the Free School of Nude at the Academy of Fine Arts in Florence. Returning to Viareggio, he settled in Torre del Lago and joined the 'Compagnia della Bohème' and during this period Viani exhibited some drawings at the 7th Venice Biennale and at the National Exhibition of Humour Art in Messina. In early 1908 he went to Paris, where he visited the Van Gogh retrospective at the Galerie Bernheim-Jeune. After a short stay in the Fleury house, he lived in la Ruche, rue Dantzig. He made a second trip to Paris and returned to Italy in May 1913, establishing new friendships in the Futurist milieu of “Lacerba”, in particular with Giovanni Papini, Giuseppe Ungaretti, Giosuè Borsi and Ottone Rosai. In February 1915 Viani supported Cesare Battisti during a tumultuous rally at the Politeama in Viareggio and exhibited ten woodcuts at the III Roman Secession. Between October and November he exhibited 624 works at the Palazzo delle Aste in Milan He became an artist known throughout Italy and his exhibitions were an essential meeting place for a cultured and international public. During this period he painted Georgica (or The Works of the Sea, the Cycle and the Earth) and participated with great success in the 17th Venice Biennale with Georgica and Veliero, as well as in various Futurist evenings: his solo exhibition at Villa Paolina in Viareggio was inaugurated with a speech by Marinetti. Viani exhibited Il volto santo (now in the Viareggio Municipal Museum) at the I Quadriennale in Rome in 1931. He worked with great fervour on panels for the Viareggio railway station, had a solo exhibition at the Galleria Ferroni in Florence and at the inauguration of the Viani Gallery in the house in Fossa dell'Abate (today's Lido di Camaiore), which he inherited from his wife. His poor health did not prevent him from exhibiting at the 19th Venice Biennale, in Viareggio, Lucca, at the 2nd Quadriennale in Rome and at the Lyceum in Florence. In 1936, he was commissioned to paint a series of marine-themed paintings for the “IV Novembre” College in Ostia and, after several days of non-stop frenetic work, he was unable to attend the inauguration. Viani was an extraordinary and exemplary figure of the cultural and intellectual flowering that characterised Tuscany and all of Italy at the turn of the 19th and 20th century.