Giovanni Segantini
Born in 1858.
Died in 1899.
Giovanni Segantini Switzerland). His youth was marked by time spent in institutions (riformatorio/Marchiondi), followed by placement with a half-brother, Napoléon, who claimed him in 1873 and took him to Trentino. In 1875 he attended regular classes at the Accademia di Brera in Milan, a documented stage in his early training and integration into the Milanese artistic milieu.
At the beginning of the 1880s he settled in Brianza – first in Pusiano, then in Carella – where he lived with Bice. On 20 January 1883 he concluded a contract whereby the Grubicy brothers became the exclusive representatives of his work.
Among the titles of works frequently cited in the sources are Il castigo della lussuria (1891) and Ave Maria a Trasbordo (1886). The documentary dossier indicates a complex administrative status during his lifetime, often described as statelessness, followed after his death by civil recognitions, notably the honorary right of citizenship conferred by the city of Samedan in 1902 and – according to certain notices – the granting of Swiss citizenship. For an understanding of his career, the variations of his name, his training at the Brera, his places of residence (Milan, Brianza, Pontresina), the representation contract with the Grubicy brothers (1883), and the dated titles of works constitute established documentary reference points.
This notice brings together the documented elements of the dossier – identity and orthographic variant of the name, dates and places of birth and death, training, stages of his career, commercial contract, and several dated titles of works – without claiming to be exhaustive as a catalogue raisonné.
