© Great Works of Western Art
1888 Born in Vólos in northern Greece, the son of an Italian railway engineer.
1903 Begins three years of studies at the Higher School of Fine Arts in Athens.
1906 After the death of his father in 1905, the family move to live in Munich.
1911 After studying in Munich he joins his family who are in Milan, but de Chirico and his mother then move to live in Paris.
1912 Exhibits three paintings at the Salon d’Automne in Paris.
1913 Sells his first paintings at the Salon d’Automne. Meets the critic Guillaume Apollinaire and through him Picasso, Derain, Brancusi and others.
1915 De Chirico is conscripted into the Italian army as Italy enters the war. He is based in Ferrara, a city which inspired him to continue painting despite the demands of military life.
1917 Meets Carlo Carrà in a military hospital. Together they found Pittura Metafisica.
1918 First one-man show at the Galleria Bragaglia in Rome.
1924 Returns to Paris where he meets the Surrealists who have, during his absence, enthusiastically received his early work. However they are less keen on his more recent output.
1931 His marriage to his first wife Raissa ends and he later marries Isabella Pakszwer Far.
1935 De Chirico travels to New York where he stays for two years. He is now producing work in a new ‘classical’ style which provokes hostility from former supporters.
1942 Paints a portrait of Mussolini’s daughter.
1946 Declares the contents of an exhibition of his metaphysical paintings to be fakes.
1950s It becomes clear that de Chirico has been making copies of his own early work, selling them as originals. He defends this by saying that the concept is his and the time of execution is of no consequence. He campaigns against Modernism.
1978 Dies in Rome, active to the end.
1909 Portrait of the Artist’s Brother, Berlin, Staatliche Museen
1911 Portrait of the Artist’s Mother, Rome, Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna
1912 The Nostalgia of the Infinite, New York, MOMA
1912 Solitude (Melancholy), London, Estorick Collection
1913 The Melancholy of a Beautiful Day, Brussels, Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts
1913 Ariadne, New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art
1913 The Uncertainty of the Poet, London, Tate
1913 The Soothsayer’s Recompense, Philadelphia Museum of Art
1913 The Tower, Zurich, Kunsthaus
1913 The Red Tower, Venice, Peggy Guggenheim Foundation
1914 The Song of Love, New York, MOMA
1914 Premonitory Portrait of Guillaume Apolinaire, Paris, Musée National d’Art Moderne - Centre Georges Pompidou
1914 The Philosopher’s Conquest, Chicago, Art Institute
1914 The Child’s Brain, Stockholm, Moderna Museet
1915 The Amusements of a Young Girl , New York, MOMA
1915 The Evil Genius of a King, New York, MOMA
1916 The Melancholy of Departure, London, Tate
1916 The Revolt of the Sage, London, Estorick Collection
1917 Metaphysical Interior with Sanatorium, New York, MOMA
1919 Hermetic Melancholy, Paris, Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris
