Gino Severini (Cortona, 1883 – Paris, 1966) moved to Rome at a very young age. There, in 1900, he met Giacomo Balla, who introduced him to Divisionist painting—a technique he would later deepen during his stay in Paris beginning in 1906, as seen in works like Bois de Boulogne (1907) and Springtime in Montmartre (1909). In the French capital, Severini came into contact with leading intellectuals of the time and many fellow artists, including Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, Juan Gris, Paul Signac, Amedeo Modigliani, and Guillaume Apollinaire, to name just a few.

Despite living in Paris, Severini maintained close ties with Italy: in 1909, he was among the signatories of the Futurist Manifesto written by Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, and the following year he joined Balla, Boccioni, Carrà, and Russolo in signing the Manifesto of Futurist Painters. In 1912, he persuaded Umberto Boccioni and Carlo Carrà to come to Paris, where the first exhibition of the movement was held at the Bernheim-Jeune Gallery. Severini also took part in subsequent Futurist exhibitions across Europe and the United States. In 1913, he held his first solo exhibition at the Marlborough Gallery in London, later presented at the Der Sturm Gallery in Berlin.

During these years, Severini’s work was influenced not only by Futurism—which he had clearly embraced—but also by Cubism, as well as by themes that had become new artistic classics, particularly in France, such as cabaret scenes. Notable examples include: The Pan Pan Dance at the Monico (1911), Dynamic Hieroglyph of the Bal Tabarin(1912), Blue Dancer (1912), La Chahuteuse (1912), The Restaurant in Montmartre (1913), Springtime in Montmartre(1913), and Still Life with the Newspaper Lacerba (1913). Between October 1917 and August 1918, he published a series of articles titled La Peinture d’avant-garde in De Stijl, the Dutch magazine dedicated to Neoplasticism.

By 1921, in the aftermath of World War I, Severini’s artistic orientation had changed. Before the war, he worked within both Futurism and Cubism, but afterward, he turned toward a quieter, more Metaphysical and Neoclassical painting style, as reflected in his 1921 treatise From Cubism to Classicism. This shift toward a more restrained, representational language—far from the frenzy of Futurism—was part of what came to be called the “Return to Order,” a trend that affected not only Severini but also contemporaries like Picasso and De Chirico, the latter writing about it for the first time in 1919 in the journal Valori Plastici.

Between 1924 and 1934, Severini experienced a religious crisis that led him to focus almost exclusively on sacred art. He worked on frescoes and mosaics, such as those for the churches of Semsales (Fribourg, 1924–1926) and La Roche in Switzerland, The Ten Commandments for the Palace of Justice in Milan, and decorative cycles for Montefugoni Castle (Florence, 1922), the Palazzo della Triennale in Milan (1933), the University of Padua, and the Foro Mussolini in Rome (1937).

In 1923, Severini took part in the Rome Biennale, and in 1926 and 1929 he was included in exhibitions in Milan and Geneva organized by the Novecento art movement. In 1930, he was accepted for the first time into the Venice Biennale, and in 1931 and 1935 he participated in the Roman Quadriennale. Notably, during the 1935 edition, he was awarded the Painting Prize for a room entirely dedicated to his work, which included 36 different pieces. That same year, he moved to Rome, although he continued to spend extended periods in Paris, where he later contributed a major decoration for the Exposition Universelle. In 1938, several of his mosaics were shown at the Galleria della Cometa in Rome.

After World War II, Severini returned to subjects from his Futurist period and to Cubist-inspired geometric abstraction. In spring 1947, he exhibited in Paris in a show organized by his friend Guido Seborga at the Billiet Gallery of Gildo Caputo. Between 1949 and 1950, he joined the Verzocchi Collection project—a collection of paintings, now held at the Civic Art Gallery in Forlì, commissioned by businessman Giuseppe Verzocchi to forge what was possibly the first connection between contemporary art and industry. Artists were asked to create a painting of specific dimensions on the theme of labor, as well as a self-portrait. Many major artists participated alongside Severini, including De Chirico, Guttuso, Casorati, Carrà, and Vedova. Severini contributed a self-portrait and a work titled Symbols of Labor.

From the mid-1940s onward, Severini—by then a role model for younger generations of artists—began devoting more time to critical essays and autobiographical writing. His publications include Independent Art, Bourgeois Art, Social Art (1944), The Life of a Painter (1946), Testimonies – 50 Years of Reflection (1963), and Time of Modern Effort: The Life of a Painter (published posthumously in 1968).

He eventually settled in Paris, where he died in 1966.