ART & ARTISTS: Luigi Bompard

Thursday, 18 July 2024

Luigi Bompard - part 2

c1920 Self-Portrait with a dedication
pencil on paper

Born in Bologna in 1879, from a French father, Luigi Bompard was not an artist who could be called revolutionary, he always worked in the wake of the Italian tradition influenced by the Jugendstil and, for the early days, the debt to Dudovich is very high, so much so that the two worked together. In any case, I was very struck by a series of lithographs that Bompard dedicated to photography, personalising the various phases from development to printing through women's faces. Perhaps this is the most original work he did.

He frequented Paris a lot, where he exhibited at the Salon d'Automne in 1909. He met the Italians Cappiello and Boldini by whom he was clearly influenced in the revival of themes of the beau monde for painting. When the war broke out he was still in the French capital where he followed the Caillaux trial for L ' Illustration italiana and l' Illustration française . He later moved to Milan and finally to Rome where he continues to work for newspapers and specialized magazines such as "Il Travaso delle idee", "Noi e il Mondo", "Il Giornale della Domenica", "La Tribuna", "La Voce d'Italia”, “Il Corriere dei piccoli”, “Marc'Aurelio”, “Guerin Meschino” and novels for which he also creates the covers.

From this last period are a series of portraits of famous people such as Mascagni at the piano , Puccini at his desk and also a small portrait of d'Annunzio which has only recently re-emerged in the collections of the Caproni Museum and which was exhibited for the first time at the exhibition “Gabriele d'Annunzio aviator” at the Gianni Caproni Air Force Museum in Trento. Once in Rome he undertook to paint large oil portraits such as the one of Luciano Zuccoli, Emma Gramatica and Lyda Borelli of which, however, I have not found images online. Among his latest works are the pastels of the Femininity series and above all the Dancers series. He died in Rome on February 24th. 1953.

This is part 2 of a 3-part series on the works of Luigi Bompard: