Francesco Cangiullo (Italy)
1884-1977
Francesco Cangiullo, born in Naples on January 1884, was one of the central figures of Italian Futurism. Along with his brother, Pasqualino, Cangiullo collaborated on major manifestos, poetic collaborations, and paintings that would help to define the movement, headed by Filippo Tammaso Marinetti, whom he met in 1910.
In 1913 he joined the Futurist movement, by 1914 participating in the Free Futurist Exhibition International in Rome, with paintings and sculptures created in collaboration with Marinetti and the artist Balla.
In 1916 he published his masterwork, Piedigrotta, published in the same year as with Caffeconcerto: Alphabet Surprise, where he turned his language into pictorial images, in which the typological images became characters of “drama.” During the 1920s, he composed, sometimes with Marinetti, several important manifestos, including the “Theater of Surprise,” (1921), “Pentagram Poetry, and “The Futurist Furniture,” (Il mobilio futurista) as well as the “Futurist Manifesto of Friendship in War” (Manifesto futurista dell’amicizia in guerra).
Cangiullo, in his later years, grew increasingly interested in theater, working toward the creation of a Futurist synthetic theater.
In 1924, the author moved away from Futurism, although remaining a friend of Marinetti; and in 1930 he published his collected memories of his Futurist experiences.
BOOKS OF POETRY and related publications
La Maddalena del caffè Fortunio: Pittoriche e pittoresche avventure galanti (Naples: Casa ed. Bideri, 1916); Piedigrotta: parole in liberto (Milan: Edizioni futuriste di Poesia, 1916); La prima esposizione dell’Alfabeto a sorpresa, creazione dei futuristi Canguiullo e Pasqualino (Rome: Casa d’arte Bragaglia, 1918); Caffè concerto: alfabeto a sorpresa (Milan: Edizioni futuriste di Poesia, 1919); Poesia pentagrammata (Naples: G. Casella, 1923); Poesi (Naples: Rispoli, 1938); Capri ed Amalfi: Poemi (Naples: Editore Anonima Rispoli, 1941); Poesia inamorata: 1911-1940 (Naples: Moralo, 1943)
See works below:
