Krumm began his artistic journey at the Brera Academy in Milan, under the wise guidance of Palanti and Campestrini, who promoted realistic academic painting. This was part of the "return to order" (retour à l’ordre), in clear antithesis to the various currents which had led to futurist art, aeropainting and then the avant-garde inspired by the technological dynamism in Rome during the first two decades of the 20^th century. Thanks to this traditionalist basis, Krumm was able to delve into various characteristic themes of the 20^th century. For instance, his "Sinuous Bodies" sums up both Picasso's "Les demoiselles d'Avignon" and Cézanne's "Bathers", bringing together Cubist and Impressionist elements in a happy synthesis, and representative of Krumm's great commitment to the study of the great masters.

Abstract art, a must for all twentieth-century artists, was used by Krumm to get an understanding of space and volumes, described by means of color. It is no coincidence that, in some instances, there are signs of prefigurations of realism in the abstract. The themes of post-industrial society's alienation are dealt with in darker tones, passing through a series of workshops and crafts where light becomes ever more accentuated, reaching idyllic rural paintings, where the figures intent on their daily tasks are depicted in far brighter, radiant tones to suggest a return to the simplicity of life through manual skills and nature. What unites each of Krumm’s works is his search for the interiority of man in relation to the social, professional and domestic environment in which he lives. There is something deeply spiritual about his work. In addition to the innumerable stresses and strains of modern life in the 20^th century which he partly investigated, Krumm’s research led him to penetrate the deepest aspect of what it is to be human. This also led him to produce sacred works for churches. His approach was not dictated by any modernist manifesto of intent; instead, Krumm preferred to adopt a transversal way of feeling to avoid any contamination in one sense or another. A way of perceiving, reading and interpreting everyday life by drawing on realistic experience, but through a style of expressive hardness and simple iconography: that of the human figure, made solemn and impressive by Krumm. Even everyday objects become evocative of the human condition. A miner's helmet in a grim, gloomy environment indicates just how hard mining can be, but in that moment the helmet is shown on a surface, meaning that the man is free from the burden.

Objects therefore become a symptom of what it is to be human. His style seems merely hinted at, because Krumm leaves it up to color and shape to describe a state of mind. And I would say that the fact that he came from Turin is no coincidence: the city where Felice Casorati had influenced cultural and intellectual circles, and had opened his studio to young artists, promoting his concept, later defined as “magical realism”, where color and volume suggest and fix in time a specific state of mind, making it solemn and monumental. Where research is not aimed at the exact expression of a figure, but an impression; where the value of the form is expressed using color and light to define its plasticity and underline the condition of what it is going to represent. Krumm goes a little further, by adding to the monumental solemnity of the instant a sort of dynamism that gives the figure a form of vital energy. Energy, however, that is never frenetic, but well considered, linked to the simple gestures of the instant being depicted.

Art critique by Marzio Mori