By Anne Leader

Italian modernist Giorgio Morandi died June 18, 1964, in Bologna. Morandi worked as both a painter and printmaker and focused his attention on still life, preferring simple forms and subjects limited primarily to vessels, flowers, and landscapes.

His work was featured in a retrospective held at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2008. A museum dedicated to his life and art was created in Bologna through a bequest from his widow and is presently on view at MAMbo (Museo d’Arte Moderna di Bologna).

Reference: Piero Pacini. “Morandi, Giorgio.” Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online. Oxford University Press. 

The Bridge on the Savena at Bologna, etching, New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Elisha Whittelsey Collection, The Elisha Whittelsey Fund, 1949

Still-Life, 1916, oil on canvas, New York, The Museum of Modern Art, acquired through the Lillie P. Bliss Bequest, 286.1949; © 2014 Giorgio Morandi / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / SIAE, Rome

Still Life in broad strokes, etching, New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Harris Brisbane Dick Fund, 1946

Still Life, 1943, oil on canvas, Washington, DC, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Gift of the Marion L. Ring Estate, 1987, 87.30

Still-life, oil on canvas, 1946, London, Tate; © 2007 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/SIAE, Rome, photo credit: Tate, London Art Resource, NY

Still Life of Bottles and Pitcher, 1946, oil on canvas, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 61.662

Natura morta (Still Life), 1952; oil on canvas, San Francisco, Collection SFMOMA, Purchase, by exchange, through the bequest of Elise S. Haas; © Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / SIAE, Rome

Tags: 20th century, bologna, giorgio morandi, italian art, modernism, still life