Massimo Campigli (born in Berlin in 1895 as Max Ihlenfeld) grew up in in Florence and by 1909 was mixing in Futurist circles in Milan. In 1919, he went as a journalist to Paris, where he began to paint and meet artists such as Giorgio di Chirico and Gino Severini. He was influenced by the 'metaphysical' paintings of his fellow Italian artists and by Picasso's 'classical' works of the 1920s.  Campigli also came to be greatly influenced by ancient Egyptian and Etruscan art, which led to the series of works depicting archetypal, female figures that earned him international aclaim in the 1930s. Campigli signed Mario Sironi's Mural Art Manifesto in 1933, and undertook large fresco commissions in Italy and Switzerland. He exhibited in the Venice Biennale in 1948, and had a major retrospective exhibition in Milan in 1967. Campigli lived between Italy and France, and died in St.Tropez in 1971.

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