Enrico Donati

Doctorate, University of Pavia, Italy 1929. Moved to Paris, worked as composer, developed an interest in anthropology and in 1934 traveled to the American Southwest and Canada to study and collect American Indian artifacts. After brief period in New York as a commercial artist he returned to Paris to study painting. Returned to New York in 1939 when war broke out. Attended the New School for Social Research.

1942 first one-man show at the New School’s gallery. Became involved with the surrealists in New York including Max Ernst, Salvador Dali, Yves Tanguy, Arshile Gorky, Marcel Duchamp, Giorgio de Chirico, Fernand Léger and the American sculptor Alexander Calder. Collaborated with Duchamp on several projects. Moved through Constructivism and Abstract Expressionism in his work. His work is in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art, the Guggenheim Museum and the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, the Museum of Fine Art in Houston and the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium in Brussels.

In the 1960s he became a businessman taking over and expanding a successful perfume business.

[Source: New York Times obituary April 26, 2008]