Galleria Tommaso Calabro is thrilled to participate to the first edition of the fair Independent 20th Century at the Battery Maritime Building in New York, with a selection of works by the Surrealist artist Stanislao Lepri (Rome 1905 – 1980 Paris).
Descended from a noble family in Rome, Lepri followed a diplomatic career to become the Italian consul in Monaco and Brussels. He resigned after the Second World War to pursue painting, encouraged by his lover, the Italian-Argentinian Surrealist Leonor Fini (1907-1996). The two lived together in Rome and Paris, where they formed a life-long ménage à trois with the Polish writer Constantin Jelenski (1922-1987).
Like Fini, Lepri conjured up otherworldly universes populated by magical or demonic figures and animals bordering on the monstrous. But Fini rejected any easy comparison between their work. Lepri “had such a world of his own that it seemed simplistic to say that he ‘followed’ me”, she wrote. “No, never.”
Lepri’s paintings are ultramondi metafisici, where he unveils “the unbelievable, the ambiguous, the contrary, the dark metaphor, the allusion, the astute, the sophism,” which pervade the labyrinthic, modern world. Throughout his career, Lepri exhibited his works across Europe, in New York and in Cairo, working with gallerists such as Alexander Iolas and Jean Charpentier. In addition to his commitment as a painter, Lepri also worked as a theatre scenographer and illustrator.
