ROBILANT + VOENA, First Floor, 38 Dover Street, London W1S 4NL
Opening Hours: Monday to Friday, 10am – 6pm

ROBILANT + VOENA are pleased to announce an exhibition of GIORGIO MORANDI Still lifes, curated in partnership with Galleria D’Arte Maggiore G.A.M., Bologna, opening 12 October through 29 November.

Featuring 14 paintings, 3 watercolours and 2 drawings, this will be a focused study on Giorgio Morandi’s key subject matter of the still life in its various incarnations. Shells, bottles, jugs, bowls, boxes and flowers are examined through the eyes of one of the most important Italian modern painters, whose work has inspired increasing critical and popular acclaim. This will be the first significant exhibition on the artist in London since the 2001 Tate Modern survey which contributed so vitally to his international prestige. Accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue, with an introduction by Francesco Poli, this exhibition will present a unique opportunity to come close to masterworks by this influential ‘artist’s artist’, several of which are previously unseen works from private international collections.

The exhibition focuses on key works from the 1940s through the 1960s, revealing the quintessential Morandi signature: quiet, subtle and solitary; where a pared down palette and brevity of subject succeed in presenting to the viewer multiple possible readings. Four works from the early 1940s reveal Morandi’s rather dark frame of mind during the inter-war years: two works representing sea shells from 1943 are particularly powerful in creating an especially sombre mood. This reflects the traumatic effects that the Second World War had on Morandi (he was jailed by the fascists that same year for anti-fascist involvement), who immersed himself in art almost as if in therapy during that time.

By contrast, post-war we see Morandi brightening the palette. Works from 1947 through 1956 appear almost joyous in the clarity and warmth of the colours and the more extensive range of subjects represented. An important 1947/48 work (Vitali 586, above left) features an elaborate composition of seven vessels, whereas in another 1948 work (Vitali 609) we see a rare and wonderful cake stand. On the other hand, a 1954 Natura Morta (Vitali 898, above right) depicting eight vessels – bowls, boxes and vases, displays Morandi’s almost sculptural mastery of the painted composition where the spaces around the objects appear as important as the relationships between them.

Post 1959, we see Morandi’s gradual simplification of subject-matter, colour and line. In four works on paper and one painting executed between 1959 and 1963 (a year before the artist’s death) we witness the bare bones of Morandi’s art stripped to essentials. We see exactly why Giorgio Morandi (1890 – 1964) has become a unique example of how a figurative painter could be one of the greatest proponents of abstraction, or as Francesco Poli puts it ‘a forerunner for a minimalist conception of painting’.

For more information and images please contact Mira Dimitrova via [email protected] or 0207 409 1540