Men Waiting, 1919

Born in Florence, Ottone Rosai studied at the city’s Academy of Fine Arts before being expelled following a disagreement with a teacher. In 1913 he became a committed Futurist and exhibited as part of F. T. Marinetti’s group the following year. After World War One, Rosai gradually moved away from his vibrant Futurist vocabulary, and adopted a more solemn figurative style inspired by early Renaissance art and the work of Cézanne. His images of humble country folk engaged in everyday activities, and Tuscan landscapes rendered in atmospheric brushwork, associate his art of the inter-war years with the ‘Strapaese’ tendency, which celebrated the timeless rhythms of rural Italian life in contrast to Futurism’s emphasis on dynamism and the modern world.