Corrado Cagli (1910 – 1976) was an
Italian painter of
Jewish heritage, who lived in the
USA during
World War II.
Cagli was born in
Ancona, but in 1915 moved with his family to Rome.
In 1927, he made his artistic debut, with a mural painted on a building in
Sistina Street. The following year, he made another mural painting, this one in a hall in Vantaggio Street.In 1932, he held his first personal exposition in the "Gallery of Art of Rome."Together with other prominent artists, including
Giuseppe Capogrossi and
Emanuele Cavalli, he formed the group of the "New Roman School of Painting," better known as
Scuola Romana.
In the early 1930s in
Rome, although he was very young, Cagli was considered a leading exponent of the upcoming generation of artists.In 1937 and 1938, he exhibited works at the "Comet" gallery in
New York.
In 1938, when
Benito Mussolini stepped up the persecution of
Jews, Cagli fled to
Paris and later went to New York where he became a U.S. citizen.
He enlisted the
U.S. Army and was involved in the 1944
Normandy landings, and fought in
Belgium and
Germany.He was with the forces that liberated the
Buchenwald concentration camp, and executed a series of dramatic drawings on that subject.
In 1948, Corrado Cagli returned to Rome to take up permanent residence there. From that time forward, according to his method of multiple search, he experimented in various abstract and non-figurative techniques (neo-
metaphysical, neo-
cubist, informal)....
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