Behind Stage ,circa Dante Ortolani (1884-1968)

Item Details

26 x 35 

excellent condition

Dante Ortoiani was born in Urbino, Italy on March 3, 1884.He studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in his city, obtaining his degree as a drawing teacher.He continued his studies in Painting and Decoration in Rome, also graduating as an architect.In Modrone de Plasencia, Italy, he was named director of the School of Arts and Crafts of the Visconti Institute.He arrived in Argentina in 1913, and years later became a naturalized citizen. He worked as a set designer, mural painter and religious decorations.In 1915 in the city of Tucumán, Argentina, he designed for the Opera Theater, his first set for the opera, Tucumán (1914), a work by the Argentine musical composer Felipe Boero (1884-1958) and libretto by the Argentine poet, lawyer and diplomat Leopoldo Díaz (1862-1947). In the city of Rosario he worked on the designs for the decoration and ornaments of the Teatro Colón in Rosario.In 1916, the artists Luis Boni and Dante Ortolani were hired to do the interior decoration and painting of the Basilica of San Antonio de Padua, which had been abandoned several years before.The Church of Villa Devoto, the Politeama theater (demolished), the Coliseo theater .The conference room of the Central Headquarters of the Argentine Automobile Club, Av. del Libertador 1850, Palermo.In 1927, he was hired along with the Argentine painter, Pío Collivadino (1869-1945), to design the main hall of the Coliseo theater with an Egyptian setting, based on an allusive party; the following year in the same room he created a Venetian setting.The Empire Theatre is one of the surviving theatres designed by architect Sabaté in the best pre-war Art-Deco style and decorated with murals in the entrance hall by Juan Carlos Montero and Dante Ortolani. The theatre was inaugurated on June 20, 1934. In 2007, restoration work began.In 1939, Ortolani was appointed stage director of the Teatro Colón, participating in the design of several sets for operas and ballets.The work contains elements of the popular Argentine musical repertoire and the national language.He was hired by the Teatro la Escala in Milan during the 1953 and 1954 seasons to stage two operas by Béla Bartók.He taught at the National School of Decorative Arts and was Head of the Mural Decoration Workshop at the Higher School of Fine Arts in Cárcova.