Photo © President and Fellows of Harvard College
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Photo © President and Fellows of Harvard College
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Identification and Creation

Object Number
23.2005
People
Gino Sandri, Italian (Rossignlione, Genoa, Italy 1892 - 1959)
Title
Black Shirts
Other Titles
Original Language Title: Camicie Nere
Classification
Prints
Work Type
print
Date
c. 1921
Culture
Italian
Persistent Link
https://hvrd.art/o/49546

Physical Descriptions

Technique
Lithograph
Dimensions
stone: 40 x 30 cm (15 3/4 x 11 13/16 in.)
Inscriptions and Marks
  • inscription: lower margin, graphite, hand written: inscription by a former owner, Augusto Calabi: avuta dall' autore 1.VIII.22 [followed by several marks that Calabi's daughter-in-law says is his monogram]

Provenance

Recorded Ownership History
Gino Sandri, Gift to Augusto Calabi, 1922.
Augusto Calabi, Gift from the artist, 1922, Bequest to son.

Acquisition and Rights

Credit Line
Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Anonymous Loan
Object Number
23.2005
Division
Modern and Contemporary Art
Contact
am_moderncontemporary@harvard.edu
Permissions

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Descriptions

Commentary
The print shows four of Mussolini's Black Shirts. Presumably this is an image incorporated in, or related to, Sandri's illustrations to "Fanciulli d'Italia" by A.V. Gentile, published in 1921. Two toughs, their cruel faces in profile, stand menacingly in front of two less hardened men, one young, one old, seen full-face. The artist's brilliant combination of pose and attitude, together with the vigorous patterning of the blocked-in black shirts and sketchy rendering of the rest of the forms, creates a singularly sophisticated image, which rises above caricature. This is a parallel to the far more famous tusche lithographs of Nolde and especially Grosz, which document parallel developments among the Germans to the north.

Verification Level

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