Harvard Art Museums / Fogg Museum | Busch-Reisinger Museum | Arthur M. Sackler Museum

Severini was a prominent painter of Italian futurism, the first strategically organized avant-garde art movement of the twentieth century. It was launched by poet, polemicist, and entrepreneur Filippo Tommaso Marinetti in 1909. The futurists declared war on traditional art and outmoded cultural institutions and proclaimed the advent of an aesthetic that would embody the dynamism of modern life and its enhancement by technology. The Yellow Dancers was one of eight seminal works by Severini included in the first major futurist exhibition, held in Paris in February 1912. Two cabaret dancers whirling in a spotlight are reduced to scattered shards of black, yellow, and fleshy pink, following a principle stated in the 1910 Technical Manifesto of Futurist Painting: “movement and light destroy the materiality of bodies.”

Object Number

1961.132

People

Gino Severini, Italian (Cortona, Italy 1883 - 1966 Paris, France)

Title

The Yellow Dancers

Classification

Paintings

Work Type

painting

Date

c. 1911-1912

Culture

Italian

Persistent Link

https://hvrd.art/o/312203

Medium

Oil on canvas

Dimensions

45.7 x 61 x 2.3 cm (18 x 24 x 7/8 in.)
framed: 64 x 79 x 5.5 cm (25 3/16 x 31 1/8 x 2 3/16 in.)

Inscriptions and Marks

• Signed: On stretcher, u.r., graphite: Gino Severini

Credit Line

Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Joseph H. Hazen

Copyright

© Gino Severini / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris

Accession Year

1961

Object Number

1961.132

Division

Modern and Contemporary Art

Contact

am_moderncontemporary@harvard.edu

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Milton Keyes, Arts: A Third Level Course: Modern Art 1848 to the Present: Styles and Social, The Open University Press (United Kingdom), mentioned p. 143, reproduced p. 143, fig. 103

Marianne W. Martin, Futurist Art and Theory 1909-1915, The Clarendon Press (Oxford, England, 1968), Text pps. 101-102; reproduced b/w, Pl. 71

Anne d'Harnoncourt, Futurism and The International Avant-Garde, exh. cat., Philadelphia Museum of Art (Philadelphia, PA, 1980), no. 64, reproduced b/w; text, p.21

Anna Gruetzner Robins, Modern Art in Britain, 1910-1914, exh. cat., Merrell Holberton (London, England, 1997), p. 62 repro., cat. 182

Daniela Fonti, Gino Severini: The Dance 1909-1916, St. Martin's Press (2001), page 71

Flavio Fergonzi, The Mattoli Collection: Masterpieces of the Italian Avant-garde, The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation (New York, 2003), pp. 330-331 (ill in. b/w)

Le Futurisme a Paris: une avant-garde explosive, Editions du Centre Pompidou (Paris, 2008), p. 170-171, fig. 43

Cubism: Explorations and Adaptations, Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, 09/18/1982 - 10/26/1982

Masterpieces of European Art, Busch-Reisinger Museum, Cambridge, 06/22/1985 - 09/15/1985

Modern Art in Britain 1910-1914, Barbican Art Gallery, London, 02/20/1997 - 05/26/1997

Futurism and Paris, Musée National d'Art Moderne, Paris, 10/15/2008 - 01/26/2009; Scuderie del Quirinale, Rome, 02/20/2009 - 05/24/2009; Tate Modern, London, 06/12/2009 - 09/20/2009

Modern Art and Modernity, Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, 01/31/2013 - 06/01/2013

32Q: 1300 Early Modernism, Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, 11/16/2014 - 01/01/2050

This record has been reviewed by the curatorial staff but may be incomplete. Our records are frequently revised and enhanced. For more information please contact the Division of Modern and Contemporary Art at am_moderncontemporary@harvard.edu