Alfredo Bortoluzzi

Bauhaus student of the Bauhaus Dessau , below left Alfredo Bortoluzzi with Grit Kallin

Alfredo Bortoluzzi (born December 21, 1905 in Karlsruhe , † December 20, 1995 in Peschici ) was an Italian dancer , choreographer and set designer who studied at the State Bauhaus .

Life

Alfredo Bortoluzzi was the son of Italian parents and grew up in Karlsruhe. After graduating from high school, he studied from 1924 to 1927 at the Academy of Fine Arts in Karlsruhe , where Hermann Gehri and Walter Conz were among his teachers. In Walter Conz's course in etching , Bortoluzzi obtained the master class diploma. Despite Conz's offer of an assistant position, Bortoluzzi enrolled in 1927 to study at the Bauhaus in Dessau , which lasted until 1928. After Josef Albers' preliminary course , he joined the drawing and painting classes of Wassily Kandinsky and Paul Klee as well as the stage class of Oskar Schlemmer . In 1930 Bortoluzzi returned to the Bauhaus as an intern. In the same year he exhibited his works together with other Bauhaus artists in the Ferdinand Möller gallery in Berlin. In 1933 he took part in an exhibition in Düsseldorf , which was closed and whose works were confiscated by the National Socialists as " degenerate art ". He then took ballet lessons in Karlsruhe and went to Paris in 1936, where he studied classical ballet . He became a solo dancer at the Paris Opera, was a choreographer and created stage sets. Until 1944 he worked as a dancer, choreographer and set designer in several cities in Germany. After the Second World War he was a choreographer and set designer at the Badisches Staatstheater Karlsruhe . He later worked in Bielefeld, Dresden and Essen. He ended his dance career in 1958 because of a knee injury and moved to Peschici in the Italian province of Foggia , where he devoted himself exclusively to painting.

Despite the dance, Bortoluzzi never gave up his work as a painter. In 1946 he exhibited his works with the former Bauhaus masters Kandinsky and Klee and other Bauhaus artists in Heidelberg. Further exhibitions followed in 1947 at the Kunstverein Karlsruhe, 1948 in Baden-Baden, 1950 in Cologne and 1954 in Essen. He also exhibited in Italy. In 1968 he took part in the exhibition “50 Years of Bauhaus” in Stuttgart.

After the death of Alfredo Bortoluzzi, his works were presented internationally. These included exhibitions in Milan in 1996 and 1997 and in Bolzano in 1997 as well as a retrospective in 2001 in Ticino. In 2009 a foundation based in Foggia acquired his estate, which made it scientifically accessible and presented it to the public through exhibitions.

Web links

• Alfredo Bortoluzzi. 1927–1928 student at the Bauhaus. 1930 internship at the Bauhaus at bauhaus100.de