Giorgio Morandi | Signs through time: Scala Contarini del Bovolo, Venice | produced by Fondazione Calarota with the support of Galleria d'Arte Maggiore g.a.m.

GIORGIO MORANDI

Signs through time

Scala Contarini del Bovolo – Venice
18 October – 26 November 2017

In the magnificent setting of Scala Contarini del Bovolo in Venice, Galleria d'Arte Maggiore g.a.m. is pleased to present an exhibition dedicated to Giorgio Morandi's etchings considered nowadays absolute masterpieces of the engraving art. Focusing on this aspect of the production of the Bolognese Master means giving significance to a technique to which Morandi dedicated himself throughout all his career, with excellent expertise and poetic flair, considering it as essential as his oil paintings production. The exhibition examines the main themes that characterize his artworks: the landscapes of his hometown, refined flower vases and, above all, the still lives which accompanied him over all his existence, finding every time the perfect balance between delicate signs and intense effect of light and shade.

Giorgio Morandi always put the engraving technique at the heart of his artistic research. The Master, indeed, had started to dedicate himself to etchings since 1910-11, developing that language and those themes that followed him during all his life. Despite the economy of his subjects, the still lives and the landscapes which characterize his artistic path distinguish themselves for the incessant variability of their expressive strength. His aim was to explore in depth all the possible formal balances and tone variations that different grades of chiaroscuro can create, reaching in this way various and excellent results. It is no accident that Morandi is considered one of the greatest engravers of the XX Century and that in 1930 he was nominated to be the teacher of Engraving Techniques at the Academy of Fine Art in Bologna. His lessons continued till 1956.

For this reason Morandi never subordinated the engraving art to the painting. Since the Venice Biennale of 1928, the first year in which he took part to it, Morandi has always loved to select his etchings in order to present his research to the Biennale's international public. Over the years, the results he obtained continue to be sublime and his desire to deeply investigate objects and places around him never stopped.This means analyzing how to modify tonal shades, how to calculate the hatching weaving and test every time different compositions based on bright reflections. Thanks to his incredible know-how and mastery, Morandi was awarded in 1953 the international recognition of the Grand Prize for the Engraving at the Sao Paulo Biennale in Brazil.

The exhibition taking place at the Scala Contarini del Bovolo in Venice underlines once again the importance of the Bolognese Master for bringing up the engraving to standards which have never been reached before, maintaining always unvaried attention to the intensity and the expressive strength of his content. The extraordinary exhibition context will be the perfect frame in order to fell the poetry released by Morandi's signs. The Venice exhibition also continues a long tradition of shows dedicated to the great Master by Galleria d'Arte Maggiore g.a.m.. Among the most recent, we have to mention the success of "Giorgio Morandi. Lines of Poetry" at the Estorick Collection of Modern Italian Art in London in 2013, the most comprehensive exhibition of etchings ever realized outside Italy.