As part of the Italy-China Year of Culture and Tourism 2022, the Italian Cultural Institute and the Consulate General of Italy in Shanghai organized an exhibition of painter Giorgio Morandi‘s works. The event will take place from July 1 to October 9 at the Jiushi Art Museum.
The exhibition, curated by art historian Stefano Zuffi, displays 51 works by the Italian painter, including 39 oil paintings, six etchings, four watercolors, and two sketches. These works are on loan from various institutions such as the Museo Morandi of Bologna and the National Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art in Rome.
The exhibition divides Giorgio Morandi’s career into three sections: the initial years, from the 1910s to the 1920s, the peak years, from the 1930s to the 1940s, and the declining years, from the 1950s to the 1960s.
Giorgio Morandi is one of the greatest Italian artists of the early 20th century. Born in Bologna in 1890, he entered the Academy of Fine Arts at age 17, where he would return in 1930 as a lecturer. In 1929 the artist participated for the first time in the Venice Biennale, and in 1948 he was awarded the Grand Prize for Painting by the international jury of the 29th Venice Biennale. Five years later, he won the Golden Prize for Engravings at the 2nd São Paulo Biennale. In 1962 Morandi was named an honorary member of the Florence Academy of Fine Arts.
A master of visual art with an in-depth understanding of spatial order, structural form, and color combinations, Giorgio Morandi was able to incorporate the best of several art schools, including Cubism, Impressionism, and even traditional Chinese painting, into his works.
Morandi’s paintings depict mainly landscapes, especially that of Grizzana, a small town in Emilia he was very fond of, but also flowers and still lives.
The combination of techniques from both the West and the East and an eccentric but fascinating style made Morandi stand out in the galaxy of contemporary artists.
