Book Description
Giorgio Morandi (1890–1964), an Italian painter and printmaker renowned for his simple yet stunning still lifes, is also famous for his legendary reputation as a recluse, an artist who resided in a world bound by the walls of his Bologna studio. Giorgio Morandi: The Art of Silence dispels this myth and is the first and only study in English to cover Morandi’s career in its entirety as well as in the sociopolitical and cultural context of Italian art.
Janet Abramowicz, Morandi’s former teaching assistant, takes the reader through half a century of Italian art history and its most significant movements—Futurism, Pittura Metafisica, Valori Plastici, Strapaese, Novecento—most of which have received scant attention from English-language scholars. Abramowicz shows how Morandi worked in close proximity to mainstream contemporary European art and tells the story of his relationship to the Fascist politics and patrons of his time, illustrating how his connections to this period were muted after the fall of the regime in post–World War II Italy in an effort to establish the artist as apolitical. Morandi was the only Italian modernist to emerge from Fascism unscathed.
An important new addition to scholarship on twentieth-century Italian art history, this book features many rare and previously unpublished images and will fascinate admirers of Morandi and his transcendent work.
About the Author
Janet Abramowicz is an independent scholar specializing in Italian art. For twenty years she was senior lecturer in the Department of Fine Arts at Harvard University. A practicing artist, she has been the recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim, Fulbright, and Rockefeller Foundations.
Giorgio Morandi: The Art of Silence FROM THE PUBLISHER
"Giorgio Morandi (1890-1964), and Italian painter and print-maker renowned for his simple yet majestic still lifes, is also famous for his legendary reputation as a recluse, an artist who resided in a world bound by the walls of his Bologna studio. Giorgio Morandi: The Art of Silence significantly broadens this view of Morandi and is the first and only study in English to cover his career in its entirety as well as in the sociopolitical and cultural context of Italian art during his lifetime." "Janet Abramowicz studied with Morandi before becoming his teaching assistant, a relationship that evolved into a lifelong friendship with the artist and his family. She takes the reader through half a century of Italian art history and its most significant movements - Futurism, Pittura Metafisica, Valori Plastici, Strapaese, Novecento - most of which have received scant attention from English-language scholars. Abramowicz shows how Morandi worked in close proximity to mainstream contemporary European art and tells the story of his relationship to the Fascist politics and patrons of his time, illustrating how his connections to this period were muted in an effort to establish the artist as apolitical after the fall of the regime in post-World War II Italy." An important new addition to scholarship on twentieth-century Italian art history, this book features many rare and previously unpublished images and will fascinate admirers of Morandi and his transcendent work.
Art & Photography
Book Info
