Giorgio Morandi by Mariella Gnani

Giorgio Morandi by Mariella Gnani

The collection of works by Giorgio Morandi selected by Antonio and Matilde Catanese belongs to the tradition of great Milanese collectors who had a far-sighted view of the painter, acquiring his works in the 1930s and becoming among the first to contribute to his fame. The Morandi’s works in the Catanese collection are a microcosm of the artist’s oeuvre, thanks to the number of works, their chronological spread covering almost all the years of the artist’s activity, the techniques used to create them, their themes, their place in collecting history and, most importantly, their artistic importance, rendering the collection well suited for deciphering and understanding Morandi’s work. The group includes 15 paintings made between 1914 and 1959 and three watercolours representing the distinctive themes of his work indicated by anodyne titles: Still Life, Landscape, Flowers and, most importantly, a Self-Portrait dated 1914 by Morandi. Another integral part of the collection is the almost complete series of etchings, showing the collectors’ embrace of the technique that Morandi practised in parallel to painting and that cannot be separated from it. The works have been the subject of scientific investigations, preliminary to restoration and conservation, conducted by the University of Urbino, the results of which are presented here. Texts by: Cristina Bandera, Luca Cecchetto, Mariella Gnani, Buccolini Federica, Paolo Triolo, Sabrina Burattini, Laura Valentini. Text in English and Italian.

Josef Albers (1888-1976) is considered one of the most influential abstract painters of the twentieth century as well as an important designer and educator. Albers was born in Bottrop, Germany, and became a student at the Weimar Bauhaus in 1920, later joining the school's faculty in 1922. In 1933, he and Anni Albers emigrated to North Carolina, where they founded the art department at Black Mountain College. In 1950, the Alberses moved to New Haven, Connecticut, where Josef was invited to direct the newly formed department of design at Yale University School of Art. Albers retired from teaching in 1958, just prior to the publication of his important Interaction of Color (1963).

Giorgio Morandi was born in 1890 in Bologna, Italy, where he lived until his death in 1964. From 1907 to 1913, he was enrolled at the Bologna Accademia di Belle Arti, where he later served as the professor of engraving and etching from 1930 until 1956. By 1920, Morandi established the small-scale depictions of still lifes and landscapes that he would pursue throughout his oeuvre, and that were associated with no other school or style but his own.

Laura Mattioli is the daughter of the important Italian collector Gianni Mattioli, who in 1949 acquired Pietro Feroldi's collection that highlighted the relationship between Italian modernists and French Post-Impressionists, and which included works by Giorgio Morandi from the 1910s to the 1940s. With her father, Laura visited Morandi during her childhood and has lived with his paintings practically all her life. She holds a PhD in the history of art, and since 1984 she has managed her father's collection, for which she has acquired additional works by Morandi. Mattioli has curated several exhibitions on the artist, including Last Morandi (1997-1998), in Verona and Venice; Giorgio Morandi: Late Paintings, 1950-1964 (2004), Lucas Schoormans Gallery, New York; and Giorgio Morandi et l'abstraction du r�el (2010), Hotel des Arts, Toulon, France. In 2013, she founded the Center for Italian Modern Art, in New York, where she has presented two exhibitions on Morandi, in 2015-2016 and 2018-2019.

Heinz Liesbrock studied art history, American studies, and German literature in Bochum, Germany; Swansea, Wales; and Washington, DC. He was the director of Westf�lischer Kunstverein, M�nster, from 1992 to 1999, and in 2003 became the director of the Josef Albers Museum Quadrat Bottrop. His exhibitions and publications focus mainly on American art, photography, and literature, from works by Josef Albers to Edward Hopper, Robert Adams, William Eggleston, Walker Evans, Gary Hill, Donald Judd, Sol LeWitt, Agnes Martin, Giorgio Morandi, Stephen Shore, Ad Reinhardt, Raymond Chandler, and Georg Trakl.

David Leiber, a partner at David Zwirner in New York, works closely with The Josef and Anni Albers Foundation, the Joan Mitchell Foundation, The Estate of Diane Arbus, and the Paul Klee Family as well as the Beijing-based contemporary painter Liu Ye.

Nicholas Fox Weber is a cultural historian and has been the executive director of the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation for the past four decades. During this time he has worked tirelessly to preserve the lasting achievements and legacies of the Alberses. He has written extensively on each artist, recently completing an unprecedented visual biography of these icons of twentieth-century art. Other books of his include artists such as Le Corbusier and Balthus. He is currently in the process of writing a groundbreaking new biography of the artist Piet Mondrian. He also spearheads Le Korsa, a nonprofit organization he founded in 2005 to assist with medical care and education in Senegal.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9788836650422
ISBN 10	8836650422
Title	Giorgio Morandi
Author	Mariella Gnani
Condition	Unavailable
Publisher	Silvana
Year published	2023-03-03
Number of pages	208
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.
Note	Unavailable