Gerardo Dottori
He was born in Perugia in 1884 and completed his first training at the evening courses of the "Pietro Vannucci" Academy of Fine Arts, while in the morning he works as a clerk by the antique dealer and restorer Mariano Rocchi. In the first pictorial tests he denotes attention to the Divisionist instances, in break with the academic teachings received. After graduating in 1906, he dedicated himself to the activity of decorator and moved to Milan where he deepened his knowledge of Divisionism.
Back in Umbria he discovers
painting en plein air and realizes the important work Explosion of red on green (dated 1910, but actually from 1913). He adheres to the futurist instances by carrying out the first studies of motorcyclists, cyclists, astral rhythms, explosions in which he exalts a dynamic and synthetic vision of movement. In 1914 he was among the organizers of the memorable Futurist Evening held at the Politeama Turreno of Perugia in the presence of Filippo Tommaso Marinetti.
Upon returning from the war, he resumes painting and contesting, also through writings and newspapers (he is one of the founders of the periodical “Griffa!”), The peaceful Perugian artistic climate.
Marinetti presents his first solo show in Rome: the works of these years are characterized by a more dilated and distorted vision of the landscape as in Il Lago, the first example of aero-painting vision. At the same time he continues to devote himself to decorating environments (Bar Ricci, Perugia, 1923; Ristorante Altro Mondo, Perugia) and graphics in collaboration with the publisher Campitelli.
In 1924 he exhibited at the Venice Biennale; between 1926 and 1939 he was in Rome, where he devoted himself to journalism.
The decoration of the Ostia seaplane base in 1928, together with the Triptych of speed, marks the affirmation of aeropainting.
In 1932 he participated in the Venice Biennale with the work Year X which won the Award of the Ministry of Corporations; with Enrico Prampolini he is also the only futurist to collaborate on the exhibition for the tenth anniversary of the Fascist Revolution in Rome.
In 1939 he returned to Perugia for good: he taught at the Art Institute, then Painting at the Academy of Fine Arts, becoming its director the following year.
At the end of 1941 he wrote the Umbrian Manifesto of aeropainting; from the end of the 1940s the activity of sacred and profane decorations that he created in the area of Lake Trasimeno intensified.
The first postwar solo exhibition was held in Milan in 1951, when he was invited to the first historical exhibition on the avant-garde movement held in Bologna. A multifaceted artist, he dedicates himself to ceramics, to the design of Futurist furniture and clothes; he exhibits in numerous group exhibitions especially in Umbria. In 1957 he donated five of his masterpieces to the Municipality of Perugia to form the nucleus of the future Gallery of Modern Art and the city organized his first retrospective.
In 1974 the great anthology of Trieste took place, on the occasion of its ninety years.
He died in Perugia in 1977.
