Anna Maria Brizio - Infinite Women

Born: 19 September 1902, Italy
Died: 1 August 1982
Country most active: Italy
Also known as: A M Brizio

This biography is shared from The Dictionary of Art Historians, part of the Duke Digital Art History and Visual Culture Research Lab, in line with the Creative Commons licensing. See below for full attribution.

Italian art historian and Professor of medieval and modern art at University of Turin and University of Milan; Scholar of Leonardo da Vinci.
Anna Maria Brizio was born in 1902 in Sale d’Alessandria, Italy. Brizio attended the University of Turin along with fellow Italian historian and art critic, Lionello Venturi. Brizio received her A.B. in 1923 from the University of Turin with a thesis on Defendente Ferrari da Chivasso, at the time she was still focused on the classical painters of the past. After graduation, she attended the Graduate School of Art History at the University of Rome, founded by Lionello Venturi’s father, Adolfo Venturi. Venturi and Brizio eventually collaborated to organize the first exhibition of the Gualino collection in the Regia Pinacoteca di Torino in the 1930s. They also participated in research to support the publication of Italian paintings in America. Brizio’s participation in the “Gualino exhibition” sparked her interest in contemporary art. She found it important to evaluate 19thcentury art with an understanding of the history that underlines contemporary art, especially noting the Impressionist movement, which few in Italy had done.
She then began focusing on Italian painters of the Renaissance, starting with Gaudenzio Ferrari, and then turning her focus to Paolo Veronese. Brizio furthered her connection with the Venturi’s when she became a collaborator for their magazine, L’Arte. She was the editor of L’Arte from 1930 to 1938. Once the Venturis’ moved away from their magazine, Brizio began her project for U.T.E.T., an Italian publishing company, which was Ottocento Novecento. It was the last volume of the universal history of art series published by U.T.E.T, but was the first to be published in the late 1930s. It was also considered part of a nationalistic approach that highlighted Italian painting in the 19th century. In 1939 she published one of her most famous works, Nineteenth and Twentieth Century. This book addressed the fascist regime. Starting in 1946, she taught History of medieval and modern art at the University of Turin. While she taught at Turin she directed the Galleria Sabauda (1936-1947), organized exhibitions, and collaborated with the UTET Great Encyclopedic Dictionary. Her contributions to the UTET are considered some of her most important contributions to 20th century historical-artistic studies. Later, Brizio began to focus on Leonardo da Vinci, culminating in the Selected Writings of Leonardo da Vinci in 1952. Brizio transferred to the University of Milan to be the chair of Medieval and Modern Art in 1957. She was also an important scholar of Leonardo da Vinci, also editing Leonardo da Vinci’s “Treaty of Painting.” During this time, she was urged to publish a second edition of her Ottocento Novecento, but she became more interested in abstract expressions and the relationship between art and human life. She retired in 1979 but remained as chair to the Corrente Foundation, which highlighted the period of time in art history when the Corrente Movement was developed. Brizio died August 1st, 1982 in Rapallo, Italy.