Chirico, Giorgio de 1888-1978
Italian artist

Born in Volo, Greece, of Sicilian parents, he worked in Paris, and with Carlo Carr� in Italy, where he helped to found the Valori Plastici review in 1918. About 1910 he began to produce a series of dreamlike pictures of deserted squares, such as Nostalgia of the Infinite (1911, in the Museum of Modern Art, New York). These had considerable influence on the Surrealists, with whom he exhibited in Paris in 1925. His style, with that of Carlo Carr�, is often called 'metaphysical painting', a term which he reserved for his work after 1915, which included semi-abstract geometric figures and stylized horses. In 1929 he wrote Hebdomeros, a dream novel, but in the 1930s he renounced all his previous work and reverted to an academic style and to a study of the techniques of the old masters. He published his autobiography, Memorie della mia vita, in 1945.