CHIRICO, GIORGIO DE. (1888-1978). Greek-born, Italian painter; originator of the pittura metafisica or “metaphysical” style of painting. ALS. (“Giorgio de Chirico”). 5pp. 4to. Rome, October 16, 1949. To Milanese art dealer COUNT VITTORIO EMANUELE BARBAROUX (1901-1954). In Italian with translation.

“I have received your letter. Please do not adopt this attitude, do not pretend to be ignorant, the innocent boy, the man who knows nothing because I will be forced to consider you not the king of hypocrites, but actually the emperor of hypocrites.

What are you telling me that you do not know about this matter?! But if you were the one who set up the whole affair. And if it were not so, you would not have come to Venice twice to scheme and plot and to be together with Tosi and Cesetti in the Colomba restaurant, looking like three conspirators in a cellar. Moreover, do not think that you are the only one being observed. Many, many people are watching, and you can be sure that sympathy towards you is not increasing. And many have noticed the quite immoral attitude of your friend and associate Tosi, of that gentleman almost eighty years old, who came all the way to Venice to scheme and intrigue to get money prizes, him, a notoriously wealthy Milanese bourgeois,

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when today, in Italy, there are many young artists, serious and hardworking and full of ingenuity, who struggle to make ends meet. You have made me aware and insisted that I send paintings to a type of exhibition that does not convince me at all (and you know very well that for years now, I have not participated in this kind of exhibition). Yet you insisted, knowing how things would turn out, because, as I have already told you, although you pretend to ignore everything, you yourself are running the show, and now everyone knows and talks openly about it, and it will also be discussed in the press. Not satisfied with all this, you even made me change the two hanging paintings, inducing me to exhibit the two views of Venice, which I had then painted and which, in agreement with my friend Zamberlan, I wanted to display at my exhibition, also because Zamberlan had a client for at least one of those two paintings. Instead, you had me display them in that den of rattlesnakes to devalue them; and it was Deane himself who came to my exhibition to persuade Zamberlan to hand over my views of Venice.

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As if that weren’t enough, Cesetti and his gang put my paintings in penance, at the far left of the wall at the center of which the ‘masterpieces’ were displayed, and only after I said that if they left them there, I would have withdrawn the paintings, they decided to place them in a somewhat more decent spot.

As for the matter of the prize – purchase, shared between Tosi and De Pisis, your friend Cesetti told me before the exhibition these exact words, which I guarantee with any oath: ‘Send your paintings because this time it’s your turn.’ These are the exact words of your friend Cesetti, and if he denies them, it means he is a liar of the worst kind, and I could declare it publicly.

When Cesetti came to tell me this, I pointed out to him that my position does not allow me to take part in competitions for prizes, then he added that it was a prize – purchase and repeated to me that this time it was my turn. He obviously knew very well how things would go, since he is

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of the Camorra bosses.

And do not come to me saying that the prices I had set were higher than the awards, etc.

The price of the still life was 500,000 lire, and the so-called award was precisely 500,000 lire. And then, when there is a way to favor an artist, now a friend, there is always a way to do it, so do not tell me lies on this matter too.

That then all the members of the Camorra did not even have the elementary delicacy to declare me out of competition, here is the proof in this newspaper clipping I received from Venice and that I attach here [not present].

In addition to everything, they also tried to offend me, trying to make me look like the poor unfortunate who comes with his paintings to compete among the ‘masters’ and goes back with nothing in the bag. Naturally, the public knows very well how things stand, observes you, and judges you, and it was enough to hear the opinions on the day of the opening to understand where its esteem and sympathy lie.

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I understand that all these maneuvers and all this hostility also depend a lot on the situation of the so-called modernists, a situation that worsens every day, in Italy and abroad. Just yesterday, a gentleman with his wife, who came directly from New York, told me that there, in the gallery of modernist painting, there is an atmosphere of liquidation and funeral.

I think this time I have explained myself quite clearly and have dotted all the I’s. I think you will not be surprised at all if, after all this, I have decided no longer to have any relationship with you, at least as far as the painting issue is concerned. For the rest, we can continue as before.

P.S. I don't care about your awards, but what disgusts me are the camorra and bad faith.”

Aligned with the surrealists in melding fantastic with mundane themes, de Chirico’s melancholy paintings of abandoned urban spaces such as The Soothsayers’ Recompose and The Mystery and Melancholy of the Street, earned him the admiration of Pablo Picasso and the poet Guillaume Apollinaire. In the 1920s, de Chirico modified his earlier style, turning to the use of brighter colors and the inclusion of domestic objects in his work.

Count Vittorio Emanuele Barbaroux bought and sold art, beginning and hosted solo shows of de Chirico in 1930 and 1932, while operating a gallery in Milan’s Via S. Spirito from 1938 to 1954 that represented de Chirico’s work.

Giorgio Zamberlan, owner of the Venetian Galleria S. Stefano, was instrumental in de Chirico’s success and De Chirico penned an effusive preface for Zamberlan’s 1959 autobiography Il Mercante in Camera. Giuseppe Cesetti (1902-1990), Italian artist and chair of painting at the Academy of Fine Arts of Venice, met De Chirico in Paris in the 1930s and the pair formed a friendship. He later founded the Galleria del Secolo in Venice and, in 1949, organized an exhibition celebrating 50 years of painting in Italy and, on that occasion, established the Purchase Prize, likely the topic of our letter. Italian landscape painter Arturo Tosi (1871-1956) exhibited at the Venice Biennale from 1909 to his death in 1956 and was a part of Italy’s artistic establishment as a member of the Academy of San Luca and as a member of the governing committee of the Novecento Italiano fascist art movement. Italian metaphysical painter and poet Filippo De Pisis (1896-1956) showed his landscapes, still lifes and maritime paintings at the Venice Biennale.

De Chirico seems to be suggesting that Cesetti, Barbaroux, Tosi and their affiliates are behaving like the Camorra, a southern Italian organized crime organization, if not outright implying their membership in its illegal activities.

Folded with some creasing and toning at the edges with a few pages chipped at the edges; file holes in the left margins. In good condition. Content letters by de Chirico are rare.