'Italian 1900s') was an Italian artistic movement founded in Milan in 1922 to create an art based on the rhetoric of the fascism of Mussolini.
Novecento Italiano was founded by Anselmo Bucci (1887–1955), Leonardo Dudreville (1885–1975), Achille Funi, Gian Emilio Malerba (1880–1926), Pietro Marussig, Ubaldo Oppi, and Mario Sironi.
[1] Motivated by a post-war "call to order", they were brought together by Lino Pesaro, a gallery owner interested in modern art, and Margherita Sarfatti, a writer and art critic who worked on Italian dictator Benito Mussolini's newspaper, The People of Italy (Il Popolo d'Italia).
The artists supported the fascist regime and their work became associated with the state propaganda department, although Mussolini reprimanded Sarfatti for using his name and the name of fascism to promote Novecento.
The group rejected European avant garde art and wished to revive the tradition of large format history painting in the classical manner.
Among them was the director of the academy Aldo Carpi, and students Afro, Aldo Badoli, Aldo Bergolli, Renato Birolli, Bruno Cassinari, Cherchi, Alfredo Chighine, Grosso, Renato Guttuso, Dino Lanaro, Giuseppe Migneco, Mantica, Ennio Morlotti, Aligi Sassu, Ernesto Treccani, Italo Valenti, and Emilio Vedova (and later Giuseppe Ajmone and Ibrahim Kodra), with participation from Trento Longaretti, who wasn't involved in the foundational discussions because he returned to his hometown Treviglio by train after classes.