oil on cardboard, 69×48 cm
signed lower left U. Conti dated upper left 1917
It already contains all the coloristic subtleties of the Conti of maturity, this beautiful Portrait in Pink and Black , which in comparison with contemporary still lifes seems all the more traditional and composed. In the left sleeve is, however, camouflaged a collage extracted from the newspaper “L’Italia Futurista.” Color plays with the slightest refractions at the meeting of light and shadow, where the possibility of detecting them is greatest. The mother-of-pearl tones that Conti discussed so many times in these years with his friend Corrado Pavolini are to be linked to the deep study of the poetry of Baudelaire and Mallarmé to which Conti’s painting constantly refers, drawing cues not only in content but also in technique and form.
