Giorgio De Chirico: Life And Paintings

Giorgio De Chirico (1888-1978) was one of the most controversial and consequential artists of the twentieth century-a key member of the Paris avant-garde, he was a major influence on other artists, especially the nascent surrealists. His repertoire of motifs-empty arcades, elongated shadows, mannequins, trains-created images of forlorn emptiness that became iconic.

Artists inspired by De Chirico's early work include Yves Tanguy, Pablo Picasso, Max Ernst, Salvador Dalí, and René Magritte. His influence also extended beyond painting and included writers and poets Guillaume Apollinaire, André Breton, John Ashbery, and Sylvia Plath, filmmakers Jacques Prévert and Michelangelo Antonioni, and even David Bowie, who admired De Chirico's genderless tailors' dummies that inspired his music videos.

This volume by Fabio Benzi, world's foremost De Chirico authority, offers an in-depth examination of the artist's life and work. The author draws on new archival research and provides a new vision of De Chirico's relationship with surrealism, fascism, forgery, and the European avant-gardes.