User:Giovanni Balilla Magistri/Giovanni Balilla Magistri

Giovanni Balilla Magistri (Milan, 2 june 1909 – Santa Margherita Ligure, 17 december 1972) was an italian painter.

Biography
Son of an esteemed scenographer, he showed his artistic tendency as a child. He first attended the High School of Art and then the Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera, where he shared artistic experiences with Giacomo Manzù, Bruno Munari e Luigi Filocamo. His passion for painting would follow him throughout his life. Even during the war, when he was taken prisoner in Sicily, he managed to earn appreciation by painting portraits of the American officer to whom his unit surrendered, and of his wife. He sentimentally bonded with Diana Liguori, who would remain his life partner until the day of his death, and with whom he would have three children, Anna Maria, Giovanni Paolo, and Eugenia Elisabetta.

He never expressed the desire to give a commercial and remunerative status to his work (he had always been reluctant to exposure to the general public), and then did not join any pictorial movement. He relegated painting to a hobby only, otherwise providing for his family's livelihood. He gained a good reputation as a graphic illustrator in the 1950s by collaborating with Alberto Mondadori's rising publishing house "Il Saggiatore," for which he designed the first logo, later modified by Anita Klinz. For Il Saggiatore he also designed most of the covers of the Biblioteca delle Silerchie series, which published works of fiction and nonfiction by leading authors.

Lettera sul matrimonio by Thomas Mann was the first of no less than 104 small volumes curated by Alberto Debenedetti. This experience led him to accept the direction of the publishing house "La Cittadella" in Pieve del Cairo, moving with his whole family to Mede Lomellina for a period of 5 years during which he produced numerous paintings and drawings.

When he returned to Milan, he opened Galleria Paracelso 10. This is the moment of his greatest creativity where, through continuous pictorial research, he tackles social and universal themes.

In 1975 the City of Milan dedicated a posthumous exhibition to him at the Palazzo dell'Arengario, a city street in 2004 and a plaque affixed to his last home in 2021. In 2023, the Museo del Novecento in Milan acquired one of his works.

== Works ==