Abstract

Five art exhibitions, organised between 1924 and 1931 in the Milan area, served as places for ex-combatant artists to meet up and exchange recognition. They organised themselves to safeguard professional interests and to renew Italian art; in their organisation, we find traces of «modernism» since, through art, they intended to modernise Italy in a more general sense. This article provides a preliminary reconstruction of the network of ex-combatant artists and investigates the activity of this network, showing how it gained space for political action until it encountered opposition from the fascist fine arts trade union.