Biography

Born in Parma in 1883, son of Clelia Cacciani and Federico Bocchi, he was the third of seven brothers. At the age of 12 he was enrolled by his father at the Royal Institute of Fine Arts in Parma with the aim of working as a decorator at the family business. Graduated in 1901 with honors, the following year he went to Rome for the first time where he attended the Free School of Nude on the advice of his teacher Cecrope Barilli. In the capital, where he spent the rest of his long life, he met artists such as Giovanni Costa, Giulio Aristide Sartorio, Giacomo Balla and Duilio Cambellotti, deepened and studied the works of Matisse, Renoir and Klimt [1]. In addition, he consolidates his drawing skills by starting to represent soft female nudes that accompany him throughout his career. During the same period, he set up his first studio in the Macao District together with his friend the engraver Renato Brozzi. In 1906 Amedeo married Rita Boraschi (his classmate in Parma) and in 1908 Bianca, the artist's first and only daughter, was born. The following year his wife dies.

In 1910 Bocchi was admitted for the first time with two paintings to the Venice Biennale where he was able to admire the great personal exhibition of Gustav Klimt in which he was fascinated by the work "Red Fish". In that same year, Bocchi moved to Padua following Achille Casanova who was busy decorating the interior of the basilica of Sant'Antonio to specialize in the fresco technique.

In 1911, at the great exhibition in Rome for the fiftieth anniversary of the unification of Italy, Bocchi carried out, in collaboration with Latino Barilli, Daniele de Strobel and Renato Brozzi, the reconstruction of the Golden Room, frescoed in the fifteenth century by Benedetto Bembo, of the Castle of Torrechiara, rebuilt in the ethnographic exhibition. Also in the same year, he went for the first time to Terracina which, with the Pontine Marshes and the hard life of its people, will be at the center of many of his paintings. [2] The famous Terellan women, with their wide white hats and tanned faces, will be the pivot of his works for many years to come.

In 1912 he received the gold medal from the Ministry of Education for the painting The Three Marys. In 1913, while not officially adhering to the manifesto of the Roman Secession, Bocchi looked with interest at the first exhibition organized by the group.

Between 1913 and 1915 he used his knowledge in the field of frescoes for the important commission entrusted to him by the Cassa di Risparmio di Parma for the decoration of the Council Room of the Parma headquarters, dedicated to the theme of savings. The influences of liberty and Klimt are elaborated by Bocchi allowing him to create a trilogy of frescoes: “The Savings”, “The Protection” and “The Wealth”. Recognized as one of the most important Liberty models in all of Italy, the room was finished in 1916 and received wide acclaim from critics. With the advent of Fascism, many parts of the work carried out were modified and destroyed: it was called up for restoration almost sixty years later and was gladly accepted. Happily attends the inauguration in 1976.

At the outbreak of the First World War, in 1915, he moved permanently to Rome to one of the studio-houses made available to artists by a wealthy French-speaking Alsatian, Alfred Wilhelm Strohl, inside the park that had taken his name : Villa Strohl-Fern. There Bocchi spends the rest of his life creating a series of masterpieces including the fine female nudes, green parks and wisteria-colored avenues. [3].

In this context, it is enriched through the comparison with Roman painters, but also with the influence of Gustav Klimt, Henri Matisse, Pierre-Auguste Renoir and later Renato Guttuso and the Roman painters of the second post-war period. Always developing his own style, he looks with curiosity at pointillism, symbolism and liberty.

In 1919 Amedeo Bocchi married, in second marriage, Niccolina Toppi, a young model of Anticoli Corrado. Years of happiness and growing success followed: again the Biennale, the nomination as Academic of San Luca, the gold medal for the painting Bianca in evening dress at the Monza exhibition in 1926.

The family is the predominant protagonist of his paintings: the parents, the wives, the daughter. Through the investigation of the faces he retraces a personal diary in his canvases, the leitmotif of stylistic maturity with paintings such as Niccolina con chitarra (1917) and Portrait of Bianca (1932) in which he enhances light and its reflections.

Other family difficulties hit the artist, however: in 1923 his second wife Niccolina died and in 1934 his daughter, aged only 26.

In 1967 the Accademia di San Luca dedicates the first important retrospective exhibition to him. With the painting Nel parco, in 1972, he participates in the exhibition of figurative painting in the context of the 10th Roman Quadrennial. In the same year the president of the republic awarded him the gold medal of the meritorious of culture and art. [4]

In the last few years that follow, new horizons and shapes to be experimented open up, with more acidic and strong colors, less defined bodies and shapes. He continues to search for new horizons and ways of conceiving art until his death in his house-studio in Villa Strohl-Fern on December 16, 1976. On the easel an unfinished painting is found, The Gardener, a sign of his inexhaustible passion for the painting that accompanied him to the end of his days. The latter is part of the artistic heritage of APE Parma Museo.

https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amedeo_Bocchi

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