By Anne Leader
Italian modernist Giorgio Morandi was born 20 July 1890 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. Influenced by Impressionist painter Paul Cézanne, he tirelessly repainted the same objects with an intellectually rigorous approach in order to better understand form and color. His paintings of everyday utensils are dominated by a quiet and subtle stillness. His work was featured in a retrospective held at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2008.
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