198 - Leonardo Dudreville (1885–1975)

Leonardo Dudreville (1885–1975) The Plain at Feriolo, 1943 Oil on panel 27 x 37 cm Signature: “L D” on the front; “L. Dudreville” on the back Date: “943” on the front Other inscriptions: “The Plain at Feriolo” on the back; “No. 9 The Plain at Feriolo” on a label on the back Provenance: Veneto Banca SpA in LCA Condition. Support: 90% (water stains, traces of glue, paper fragments, pencil marks) Condition. Surface: 95% (slight color loss at the edges) For direct WhatsApp assistance before and during the live auction: +39 346 12 999 80 // Direct assistance via WhatsApp before and during the auction: +39 346 12 999 80 Born in Venice in 1885 and having moved to Milan, Leonardo Dudreville enrolled at the Brera Academy. In 1905, he became friends with Anselmo Bucci, with whom he rented a studio and traveled to Paris the following year; in 1907, he presented his first works—in the Divisionist style—to Alberto Grubicy. He then met Boccioni, Bonzagni, and the Futurists, but from 1912 onward, his painting turned toward an abstraction with Symbolist roots; between 1913 and 1914, he founded, together with the critic Ugo Nebbia, the “Nuove Tendenze” group, which included Erba, Funi, Sant’Elia, and Chiattone. After the war, Dudreville abandoned abstract works and returned to Realism, though in 1919 he reconnected with the Futurists. In 1922, he was among the founders of the group “Sette pittori del Novecento”—which included Bucci, Dudreville, Funi, Malerba, Marussig, Oppi, and Sironi—but he soon broke away from it. During these years, his painting evolved into a meticulous realism that found particular expression in still lifes as well as landscapes. This pursuit of realism continued even after 1942, the year in which Dudreville moved to Ghiffa on Lake Maggiore, devoting himself until the very end of his life (1975) to still lifes—especially game—landscapes, and portraits. The cheerful summer landscape up for auction is part of a series of landscapes the Master painted in 1945 on Lake Maggiore, in Verbano di Feriolo. Noteworthy in the work up for auction is the extraordinary Art Deco-inspired rendering of the hill, which foreshadows the movement of the waves by alternating the color of the rippling lake waters with that of the meadows.