Aligi Sassu

Aligi Sassu (17 July 1912 – 17 July 2000) was an Italian painter and sculptor.

Aligi Sassu was born in Milan, Lombardy, from Lina Pedretti, from Parma, Lombardy, and Antonio Sassu, from Sassari, Sardinia. His father Antonio was one of the founders of the Italian Socialist Party (Partito Socialista Italiano) at Sassari in 1894, and had moved to Milan in 1896, where he had married Lina Pedretti in 1911. At the beginning of 1920, the Sassu family moved back to Sardinia to Thiesi, where Antonio opened a shop. After three years, the family returned to Milan, where Aligi got interested into arts. Together with friend and Futurist designer Bruno Munari, he decided to present himself to the Futurism leader Filippo Tommaso Marinetti.

In 1928, he established, along with Bruno Munari, the Manifesto della Pittura (Painting Manifesto), taking as basic assumption the display of anti-naturalistic forms. He deeply studied Diego Velázquez and the plastic nude. Of this period is L'Ultima cena, a painting that sums up Sassu's visual poetic.

In 1930, in Milan, he met Giacomo Manzù, Giandante X (also known as Dante Persico) and Giuseppe Gorgerino. In 1934, Sassu started studying Delacroix and the history paintings of the Louvre in Paris. In this period he also painted what will be his "logo" in the future, the horse, omnipresent in his future production.

In 1935, he established the Gruppo Rosso with, among others, Nino Franchina and Vittorio Della Porta. In 1936, he finished one of his most known paintings Il Caffè, as well as the Fucilazione nelle Asturie, painted in favour of the Spanish resistance. He joined the anti-fascist cultural movement of Corrente di Vita in 1938.

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