Giorgio Morandi

Elio Vittorini, Rome
L. Minelli Scheda, Rome
Acquired by the present owner in 1989

Tübingen, Kunsthalle, (& Düsseldorf, Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen), Giorgio Morandi. Antologica, 1989-90, no. 82, illustrated in colour
Bologna, Galleria Comunale d'Arte Moderna, Giorgio Morandi 1890-1990, Mostra del Centenario, 1990, no. 112, illustrated in colour
Piacenza, Galleria Braga, Morandi. Riflessioni sull'opera, 1991-92, no. 34, illustrated
Racconigi, Scuderia della Margaria, Morandi e Morandiani, 1996, illustrated
Paris, Musée Maillol, (& Sao Paolo, Museo de Arte de Sao Paolo), Giorgio Morandi. Retrospective, 1996-97, illustrated
Schleswig, Schleswig-Holsteinisches Landesmuseums Schloss Gottorf, Giorgio Morandi 1890-1964, Gemälde, Aquarelle, Zeichnungen Das Druckgraphische Werk, 1998, no. 56, illustrated in colour 

Marilena Pasquali, Morandi. Opere catalogate tra il 1985 e il 2000, Bologna, 2000, p. 46, no. 1948-1949/1, illustrated in colour

The canvas is not lined. There appear to be no signs of retouching visible under UV light. This work is in overall very good condition. Colours: Overall fairly accurate in the printed catalogue, though the colours are slightly more saturated in the original.
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The present work is an exceptional example of Giorgio Morandi's lifelong exploration of the still life genre. The artist's dedication to such a limited subject gives his oeuvre a sincerity and gravity, which invites comparison with that other modern master, Alberto Giacometti. Though Giacometti's focus was the figure, and Morandi's the object, they are bound by their inexhaustible commitment to their chosen subject matter and their 'search for the absolute'.

Morandi's oeuvre introduces us to a world where silence reigns and time is suspended. There is an overwhelming universality to his work: these bottles, pitchers and jars are containers that have been used since time began. Marilena Pasquali has argued that 'time in Morandi is a primary, ineluctable dimension: it is duration, first and foremost, and then invention, gamble, daring. In the reality of phenomena, he seeks the lasting, the unchanging, the illusion of an immobile time. Change, continuous and unstoppable, is in him knowingly as he reflects himself in the object in his studio, making them each time different because it is he, instant by instant, who is different and thus sees what is in front of him with new eyes' (quoted in Giorgio Morandi, Through Light (exhibition catalogue), Imago Art Gallery, London, 2009, p. 22).

Natura Morta, 1948-49, is one of the artist's more complex compositions, as well as being one of his most colourful. Morandi has here expanded his muted palette of whites and greys, to explore the impact of red on the tonal relationships. The painting retains the artist's characteristically understated character, but the variety of form and colour render it one of his more ambitious works. The seven forms huddle together, each container enjoying its own unique relationship with the other. They seem to protect one another: Morandi has carefully orchestrated a temporary family of form, to be rearranged for countless future compositions, but immortalised in the present work. To dismiss these forms as inanimate would be to disregard Morandi's gift for putting 'the man into things, filling them with a tension and a lifeblood that makes them vibrate to the touch of that cool fire that lights them up from inside. And the studio is transmuted into an experimental laboratory in which highly sensitive seismographs, Morandi's "antennae", register every slightest variation in arrangement and interior atmosphere' (ibid., p.22).

Much has been made of the meditative character of Morandi's paintings, the antidote to the speed and vertigo-inducing works of his Italian Futurist contemporaries. In this meditative respect, Morandi's beautifully understated and contemplative aesthetic has more in common with the works of Mark Rothko. The present work is a masterpiece in stillness, an iconic example of Morandi's extraordinarily nuanced and important artistic project.