A painting by Benedetta Cappa Marinetti, wife of Filippo Tommaso Marinetti and a fellow futurist Benedetta Cappa Marinett © Galleria d’Arte Moderna di Rome/ Alamy
The word “futurism” was born in a car crash. At least, that is the story that poet Filippo Tommaso Marinetti told back in 1909, when he coined the term in an editorial for French newspaper Le Figaro. He and some friends had spent a wild night drinking and arguing about art when they decided to hop into Marinetti’s 1908 Fiat and speed down an Italian road. Startled by two cyclists, Marinetti lost control of the…
