Futurist Women in Florence, 1916–18

Abstract

Futurism began in 1909 with Filippo Tommaso Marinetti’s manifesto published in Le Figaro, and ended with Marinetti’s death in 1944. In the interim, significant numbers of women joined the movement in different locations, including Italy, France, the United States and Russia. These women were important interlocutors for their male peers — because of their diverse cultural backgrounds, because of their vision of new female models, because of their political stance in a historical period spanning two world wars, and because of their creative experimentation in a variety of fields, including literature, visual art, theater, fashion and gastronomy.