Alberto Savinio, critic and artist: a new reading of fantastic and post-metafisica art in relation to surrealism between Rome and New York (1943–46)

This paper explores the establishment and reception of Italian “fantastic” art. Together with Raffaele Carrieri, Alberto Savinio first coined this term in 1940 to describe the process by which artists drew inspiration from ancient Greek and Mediterranean (rather than Romantic) artistic traditions. “Fantastic” art arrived in New York via Italian Peace Corps volunteer Peter Lindamood. Between 1945 and 1946, Lindamood promoted the term “fantastic Italian art” in American magazines as well as spaces such as the Hugo and Julien Levy galleries. The culmination of this public recognition was MoMA’s 1949 exhibition “Twentieth-century Italian Art,” which included a section of so-called “Fantasts.”