www . guggenheim - bilbao . eus
Subdirección de Amigos del Museo Abandoibarra et. 2 - 48009 Bilbao 944 359 012 - 944 359 080 Síguenos en:
m u s e u m m e m b e r s
A Backward Glance: Giorgio Morandi and the Old Masters
Giorgio Morandi, Still Life (Natura morta), 1956 Oil on canvas, 35.8 x 35.4 cm. Istituzione Bologna Musei | Museo Morandi. © Giorgio Morandi, vegap, Bilbao, 2019
12–october 6, 2019 curators: petra joos, with the collaboration of giovanni casini, and in consultation with vivien greene galleries 305, 306, and 307 april
From his years as a student at the Academy of Fine Arts in Bologna, Giorgio Morandi centered his practice on engraving and painting landscapes and still-lifes, which account for much of his output. Initially influenced by the Italian masters (Giotto, Uccello, Masaccio) and later by Cézanne, Cubism, and Futurism, his work gradually acquired a metaphysical orientation. In 1920, he began to investigate the world of objects (bottles, vases, boxes) and landscapes, reduced to their most elementary sobriety. His quintessential figurative painting is unlike any other 20th-century pictorial oeuvre, possessing a unique intensity, beauty, and timelessness. Morandi’s still-lifes, inspired by the most mundane objects and highly personal in terms of composition, color, and light, take his zeal for purity, concentration, and the essential to an extreme level. As the artist himself once said, “One can travel this world and see nothing. To achieve understanding it
is necessary not to see many things, but to look hard at what you do see.” This exhibition will cast new light onto Giorgio Morandi’s work, approaching it from a new perspective, analyzing the influence on his work of the Old Masters of the Spanish (El Greco), Bolognese (Jacopo Bassano, Giuseppe Crespi), and French (Jean Siméon Chardin), Schools from the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries.
Sponsored by
PRIZE DRAWING FOR 25 INVITATIONS
Log in at https://www.guggenheim-bilbao.eus/en/community/ to find out if you are one of the 25 Members who will receive a double invitation to attend the opening of the exhibition.