A painter, a stage designer and a printmaker, Clerici was one of the most important exponents of Italian Surrealism in the postwar period. Born in Milan, in 1920 he moved with his family to Rome, where he graduated with a degree in architecture in 1937. As a student he attended conferences held by Le Corbusier, and in 1936 he befriended Alberto Savinio, who introduced him to Surrealism. He moved to Milan at the end of the 1930s and associated himself with Filippo de Pisis and Giorgio de Chirico. At that time he devoted himself to both architecture and drawing. In 1943 Clerici held his first solo exhibition in Milan. In 1947 he made his debut as a set designer for a production of Mrs. Warren’s Profession by George Bernard Shaw, thus commencing what would be a prolific activity in theater, ballet, and opera. The following year, he participated in the Venice Biennale for the first time. Clerici settled in Rome in 1949, where he increased his set-designing activity and took part in shows at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, and the Canergie Institute, Pittsburgh. Between 1974 and 1985 he created a series of paintings and drawings inspired by the well-known Böcklin painting 'The Isle of the Dead'. During the 1980s and 1990s Clerici was the subject of retrospective exhibitions at the Galleria Civica d’Arte Moderna, Palazzo dei Diamanti, Ferrara (1983), the Palazzo Reale, Caserta (1987), and the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna, Rome. |
