Guido Boggiani
Boggiani was born in Omegna in 1861 into a family of landowners from Novara. In the family villa on Lake Maggiore he met Filippo Carcano, the leader of the Lombard naturalist school of landscape painting, and became his pupil.
He became well-known while still very young, for his landscapes of Lake Maggiore and nearby places. In Rome he met Gabriele D’Annunzio, who introduced him to Roman high society and the artistic-literary circles frequented by promising young artists.
At the age of 26 Boggiani made a radical change in his life: renouncing certain success as an artist, he sailed for South America to hunt for the tribe of the Caduvèi, shifting his interest in art to the field of ethnographic research. He made a number of paintings during this journey, as well as a series of portraits, and pencil and ink sketches of the customs, dress and daily life of the natives. He also wrote his most important work Travels of an artist in South America: the Caduvèi. In addition, he made photographic portraits of the native people on a second expedition.
In 1901 Boggiani left for the northern Chaco in search of an unknown tribe. He did not return from the journey; he was just 40 years old.
