Antonio Donghi

[1] After military service in World War I he studied art in Florence and Venice, soon establishing himself as one of Italy's leading figures in the neoclassical movement that arose in the 1920s.

Possessed of an extremely refined technique, Donghi favored strong composition, spatial clarity, and populist subject matter.

Critics likened his work to that of Henri Rousseau and Georges Seurat,[1] whose scenes of contemporary life are similarly touched with a subtle humor.

His still lifes often consist of a small vase of flowers, depicted with the disarming symmetry of naive art.

[2] By the 1940s, Donghi's work was far outside the mainstream of modernism, and his reputation declined, although he continued to exhibit regularly.