Alberto MAGNELLI

Do you own a piece by Alberto Magnelli and would you like to know more about the work and its value? Our Experts will carry out a free appraisal of your painting, provide you with an estimate of the market price, and help you to sell it at the best price.

Status, price and estimation of the artist Alberto MAGNELLI

Price of a painting by Magnelli: 8,000 – 80,000€.

Estimation of a drawing or watercolour by the artist for auction: 500 – 7,000€.

Artist’s status for a print: 100 – 700€.

From futurism to cubism, a transitional artist

Self-taught, inspired by the Italian masters of the Trecento and Quattrocento, he exhibited for the first time at the 8th Venice Biennale at the age of 21 and joined the emerging Futurist movement.

“For us, the gesture will no longer be the motionless movement of universal dynamism: it will be, decidedly, the dynamic sensation immortalised as such”, wrote Boccioni, Carrà, Russolo, Balla and Severini, founding members of the movement in the “Technical Manifesto of  futurist painting” in April 1911. Italian painters were trying to extricate themselves from the prevailing academic stagnation.

The latter encouraged him to follow them in 1914 for their first Parisian exhibition, and he became friends with the painters Picasso, Archipenko and Juan Gris. Magnelli synthesized futuristic art and his contemplation of the cubists: from then on, the static object carried away by movement would remain nothing more than geometric residual fragments.

A pioneer of abstraction

In 1915, the artist returned to Florence and painted his first abstract paintings, such as Lyrical Explosions representing sheaves of coloured bands, where the primary colours celebrating the end of the First World War and inspired by African art collide. Magnelli’s work was then marked by the abandonment of flat tints in favour of divided coloured surfaces and the appearance of fragmented graphics. However, if Magnelli was the first Italian artist to explore the resources of non-figurative language, he abandoned it as early as 1916, during the “return to the European order ”, to return to the themes of his early work (still lifes, landscapes).

In 1931, he suffered an aesthetic shock during his visit to the Carrara marble quarries, which materialised in the series of Stones, drawings in blue ink, which is a complete abstraction. This remarkable series truly marks Magnelli’s definitive transition to abstraction. He will become a master of non-figurative art after 1945.

He was a true figurehead of the European abstract movement, whose work marked post-war painters such as Nicolas de Staël or Victor Vasarely (Paris school) and the young Italian generation (Dorazio or Accardi).

Engraved work and collage: paroxysm of his formal research

To Alberto Magnelli’s painted work we should add the collection of Slates and Collages which are the continuation of his pictorial research. Indeed, during the Second World War, the shortage of canvases left him little choice. Taking refuge in the Plan de Grasse, Magnelli used a wide variety of techniques: etchings, woodcuts, silk-screen prints, lithographs and linocuts.

Among his main works are: Collage Les Râteaux Japonais, 1938 ; Composizione n° 7, 1950 ; Diptych Ouverture n° 1 and Ouverture n° 2, 1969 (final works).

Recognising Alberto Magnelli’s signature

Like many artists, Alberto Magnelli did not sign all of his works. However, you will find below an example of the signatures to give you an idea. Variations of these signatures do exist, do not hesitate to contact one of our experts to formally authenticate a signature.

Appraise and sell a painting by Alberto Magnelli

If you own an Alberto Magnelli painting or any other sculpture, ask for a free estimate via our online form.

You will then be contacted by a member of our team of experts and auctioneers to give you an independent view of the market price of your painting. In the event of a sale, our specialists will also advise you on the various options available to sell your work at the best price.