Nives Comas Casati

1901 – 1992

Italy

date of insertion in W.A.D. 12/2024

Biography

Nives Comas Casati
[Feroleto Antico (Catanzaro), 30 ottobre 1901 – Città del Messico (Messico), 7 maggio1992]

Daughter of Itala Dudovich, a 27-year-old lady from Trieste, sister of the famous poster artist Marcello, and Felice Michele Comas, belonging to a noble family from Catalonia who, having to leave Spain, after Trieste and Italy, moved to Calabria in 1872.
Immediately after the First World War, the Comas, father, mother and five children, left Feroleto and moved to Pola.

Milan
Nives Comas painter, in 1920 settled in Milan where she was a model and student of her uncle Marcello who trained her artistically and for whom she posed as a model for posters that soon became famous for Rinascente and Fiat, almost a second daughter, next to Adriana born from the artist’s marriage to Elisa Bucchi.
During a stay in Rimini with her uncle’s family, she met Emanuele Casati, an ophthalmologist with a passion for photography, painting and theater, whom she married in April 1922, moving to Ferrara.

Ferrara

Ferrara became the place of her affirmation as a woman and an artist, revealing a very active personality in various fields, and also affirming herself thanks to her exhibition activity.
Her husband Emanuele created a studio for her in their home with large windows to paint or create sketches, in 1924 at Palazzo Santini she set up her first solo exhibition.
The works exhibited revealed a refined decorativeness of Art Deco as in La garà§onne and Donne in verde e in viola, in which the influence of Dudovich was evident.

In this city she found a favorable environment to cultivate her passions and experiment in various fields: from painting, to theater, to directing, from acting to scenography.
For the Grand Ball in costume of 1928, a social event desired by Italo Balbo, already a friend of Marcello Dudovich, she painted the elegant posters together with other artists, this marked the painter’s entry into the cultural and artistic life of the city.
From that year began the preparation and organization of the Ariosto Celebrations, which turned out to be a great opportunity for the city of Ferrara and also for its artists and intellectuals, writers, poets.

In 1930, together with Janna Farini, she wrote and played characters in the magazine Radiotelevisione at the Teatro Comunale, designing the costumes in collaboration with her uncle. The success with the public induced the artist in the same year to write and play the musical comedy Notte a casa Romei, also set in the fifteenth century with tales of love and female tricks, the work was highly acclaimed.
In 1932 she exhibited at two group exhibitions held in Ferrara: one at the Estense Castle and the other at the Teatro Comunale: they were two pastels with female figures, women she had known during her years in Feroleto.

In 1933, the year of the transatlantic flight of the influential Minister of the Air Force Italo Balbo, the Ariosto Celebrations took place, it was decided to revive the most original of the celebrations of the Este domination, the Palio di San Giorgio, which took place on June 4, which proved to be an extraordinary attraction that would attract over 20,000 spectators every year until 1939. Guido Angelo Facchini was entrusted from 1928 with the historical research and organization of the Palio and Nives Comas Casati was given the task of designing the costumes and the choreography, drawing faithfully from the depictions of the Salone dei Mesi of Palazzo Schifanoia from which she took the colors and shapes of the clothes.

Later, with the technical support of Guido Angelo Facchini, she was the director of the filming for the documentary «Este Viva! Il Palio di S. Giorgio on that occasion, she also collaborated with Antonio Sturla, operator of the L.U.C.E. Institute and pioneer of Ferrara cinema.

Also in 1933 she curated the furnishings of the Regional Exhibition of Palazzo Sant’Anna which hosted works by well-known and lesser-known artists from the Emilian cities, above all De Pisis, Funi and Tato.
In 1934 she created the painting Donne calabresi, three young women in costume interpreted according to the new artistic languages.

she later joined the cultural elite that revolved around the «Corriere Padano» and then also that of the «Rivista di Ferrara», directed by Nello Quilici.

She staged Lodovico, the theatrical revue for which, in addition to taking care of the scenography, she designed the costumes, contributing, also as an actress, with notable popular success: the six performances, in the first months of 1933, first at the Teatro Nuovo and then at the Teatro Verdi, determined sold-out audiences. She was an ‘all-round artist, an unusual and original figure for that historical period.

Tripoli

Together with her husband, head of ophthalmology and then director of the hospital in the Libyan capital, Nives Comas Casati continued her work as an eclectic artist along with the rest of the Balbian artistic group, which also included the architects Galla-Casazza and Gandini and the painters Galileo Gattabriga, Felicita Frai, Enzo Nenci, Mimì Quilici Buzzacchi and Achille Funi: together with the last two, she frescoed the church of San Francesco in Tripoli. She also dedicated herself to frescoing in the villages of the Italian settlers.

She was a decorator and portraitist. She designed the costumes inspired by Greek vase painting for the opera Ifigenia in Tauride, which in 1938 inaugurated the new Roman theatre of Sabratha. Also in 1938 she decorated the rooms of the Circolo Italia. After Balbo’s death, she remained another year in Tripoli, until she had to separate from her husband and return to Italy as a displaced person.

After six years away from Libya she returned to stay for almost another 10 years, continuing her
profession as a costume designer, decorator, painter and terracotta sculptor.

Rome
In 1956, she returned to Rome to live with her daughter Marisa.
A year later, in the Galleria San Sebastianello she exhibited a series of colored papier-mâché together with tempera paintings by her uncle Marcello,
Her daughter married a young diplomat, Sergio Cattan, and starting in 1956 Nives Casati followed the family in their travels, after Rome, Bucharest and finally Mexico City where in 1992 at the age of 91 she died and is buried.

Exhibitions
1924 – Reading Club, Palazzo Santini
1932 – Group Exhibition, Ferrara, Estense Castle
1932 – Group Exhibition, Ferrara, Ridotto del Teatro Comunale (two pastels with female figures by Feroleto)
1957 – Galleria San Sebastianello, Rome, with Dudovich (series of colored papier-mâché)

Retrospectives
1990 -IV Biennale Donna, Ferrara, Visual Activities Center

Theater
1930 – Radio and television magazine, Teatro Comunale (with Janna Farini and Angelo Agujari) author and performer, costume designer in collaboration with her uncle
1930 (June 18) – Night at Romei’s house, musical comedy, author, performer, costume designer and creator of hairstyles
1933 – Lodovico magazine, satire of modern Ferrarese life (with Angelo Aguiari and Boari) set designer, actress and costume designer.

Films
1933 – Este Viva! The Palio of S. Giorgio, The Palio of S. Giorgio, filmed in 1933 in Ferrara on the occasion of the first edition of the modern palio, documentary director, operator Antonio Sturla.