Italian artist Caterina Katy Castellucci uses bold blocks of color and simplified forms with visible brushstrokes contributing texture to her self portrait holding a drawing compass. The color palette is muted, consisting primarily of earth tones (beige, olive green) and dark blues/grays. Her dark hair is styled in a bob, partially obscured in shadows. Her face is pale with subtly rendered features.
Castellucci was a small-town girl, from Laglio in the province of Como, who made her way into the avant-garde art world of Rome. She studied in Rome briefly before moving to Paris in 1926 with her sister Guenda to focus on art and dance at Isadora Duncan’s school. In 1927, at 22, she was a dancer in the famous Enrico Prampolini’s “Pantomime Futurista” at the Theater de la Madeleine.
In 1928, she came back to Rome, enrolled in night school at San Giacomo, and started spending time with Pericle Fazzini and Alberto Ziveri. In the same period, she met Scipione and Mario Mafai, which shaped her artistic development and direction. Castellucci started to approach the tones of the Roman School, imbuing them with vivid color. She became an integral part of this artistic current that deeply influenced the art world in Italy and beyond.
In 1932, Castellucci made her debut at the 3rd Exhibition of the Lazio Syndicate together with Giuseppe Capogrossi, Emanuele Cavalli, and Francesco Trombatori. She showed in 1936 at the Galleria della Cometa with Adriana Pincherle. In 1943 , she had a solo exhibition at the Galleria Minima in Via del Babuino in Rome.
She married the journalist Corrado De Vita, editor of the Milano Sera newspaper and in 1946, Castellucci moved to Milan, where she stopped painting and focused on teaching. In the same period, she worked for cinema and theater designing costumes and sets (Costumes for La Mandragola, 1953; sets for La Fata Morgana, 1954).
In the 1960s, she gradually moved away from the art world to devote herself entirely to teaching.
Autoritratto con compasso (Self-portrait with compass) by Katy Castellucci (Italian) - Oil on canvas / 1950 - Musei di Villa Torlonia (Rome, Italy) #womeninart #womanartist #femaleartist #selfportrait #womensart #art #artwork #oilpainting #ArtText #KatyCastellucci #Castellucci #MuseidiVillaTorlonia