Klein Yves 1928-1962 | Dadaist and Nouveau Réalisme painter

Personalità inquieta, attratto dal pensiero orientale e dalle teorie cosmogoniche, Klein, pittore e scultore  francese, legato alla poetica Dadaista, precursore della Body Art ed annesso al Nouveau Réalisme, iniziò dipingendo pannelli monocromi, limitando verso il 1957 la sua gamma al solo blu; nel 1958 tenne a Parigi una spettacolare e provocatoria esposizione (Le Vide) con muri assolutamente nudi e, tra il 1956-1959, eseguì la monumentale decorazione per la facciata del teatro Gelsenkirchen. In collaborazione con l'architetto W. Runham elaborò una teoria dell'architettura dell'aria, e per sostenerla realizzò progetti sperimentali con coperture d'aria compressa che assicurano la climatizzazione di grandi spazi naturali, letti d'aria, ecc., e tenne una conferenza alla Sorbona: L'evolution de l'art vers l'immatériel 1959. Dopo il 1960, con i Nouveaux Realistes, partecipò a numerose esposizioni con le sue Anthropométries, Cosmogonies, Peintures de feu e i suoi Reliefs planétaires. Intensa anche la sua attività teorica. È anche autore di due composizioni musicali: Sinfonia monotona n°1, 1947, e Sinfonia monotona n°2, 1962.

Max Ernst 1891-1976 | Pioneer of the Dada art and Surrealism

Max Ernst was a german painter, sculptor, graphic artist, and poet. A prolific artist, Ernst was one of the primary pioneers of the Dada movement and Surrealism. Ernst was born in Brühl, near Cologne, the third of nine children of a middle-class Catholic family. His father Philipp Ernst was a teacher of the deaf and dumb and an amateur painter. A devout Christian and a strict disciplinarian, he inspired in his son a penchant for defying authority, while his interest in painting and sketching in nature influenced Max Ernst to take up painting himself. In 1909 Ernst enrolled in the University of Bonn, studying philosophy, art history, literature, psychology and psychiatry. He visited asylums and became fascinated with the art of the mentally ill patients; he also started painting this year, producing sketches in the garden of the Brühl castle and portraits of his sister and himself. In 1911 Ernst befriended August Macke and joined his Die Rheinischen Expressionisten group of artists, deciding to become an artist. In 1912 he visited the Sonderbund exhibition in Cologne, where works by Pablo Picasso and post-Impressionists such as Vincent Van Gogh and Paul Gauguin profoundly influenced his approach to art. His own work was exhibited the same year together with that of the Das Junge Rheinland group, at Galerie Feldman in Cologne, and then in several group exhibitions in 1913.

Marcel Duchamp 1887-1968 | Cubist, Dadaist, Fauvist and Surrealist painter

Marcel Duchamp the painter and mixed media artist, was associated with Cubism, Dadaism, Fauvism and Surrealism, though he avoided any alliances. Duchamp’s work is characterized by its humor, the variety and unconventionality of its media, and its incessant probing of the boundaries of art. His legacy includes the insight that art can be about ideas instead of worldly things, a revolutionary notion that would resonate with later generations of artists.
Marcel Duchamp was a french artist whose work is most often associated with the Dadaist and Surrealist movements. Considered by some to be one of the most important artists of the 20th century, Duchamp's output influenced the development of post-World War I Western art. He advised modern art collectors, such as Peggy Guggenheim and other prominent figures, thereby helping to shape the tastes of Western art during this period.
Duchamp challenged conventional thought about artistic processes and art marketing, not so much by writing, but through subversive actions such as dubbing a urinal art and naming it Fountain. He produced relatively few artworks, while moving quickly through the avant-garde circles of his time. The creative act is not performed by the artist alone; the spectator brings the work in contact with the external world by deciphering and interpreting its inner qualifications and thus adds his contribution to the creative act.

Francis Picabia 1879-1953 | French dadaist painter

Francis Picabia was a french artist, writer, and bon vivant who contributed to various art movements in the 20th century and became best known as a leader of Dada in Paris. Born in Paris, he studied at École des Beaux-Arts and École des Arts Decoratifs. In the beginning of his career, from 1903 to 1908, he was influenced by the impressionist painting of Alfred Sisley. From 1909, he came under the influence of the cubists and the Golden Section. From 1913 to 1915 Picabia traveled to New York City several times and took active part in the avant-garde movements, introducing modern art to America. These years can be characterized as Picabia's proto-Dada period, consisting mainly of his portraits méchaniques. Later, in 1916, while in Barcelona he started his well-known Dada periodical 391, in which he published his first mechanical drawings. Picabia continued his involvement in the Dada movement through 1919 in Zürich and Paris, before breaking away from it after developing an interest in Surrealist art. Again he changed his style in 1925, when he returned to figurative painting. During the 1930s, he became a close friend of Gertrude Stein. Before the end of World War II, he returned to Paris where he resumed abstract painting and writing poetry. Picabia also worked for the theatre, designed decorations for festivals and Gala-shows. He left literary works – poems and verses, art critics, articles on theory of art.