The David Zwirner Gallery in Chelsea is currently presenting a collection of paintings by critically acclaimed Italian artist Giorgio Morandi in a self-titled exhibition. The works featured in this show were completed within the 1940s-1960s, the last two decades of Morandi’s life, and the time period where he focused on serial and reductive forms that are evident in several pieces known as Natura morta (Still life). With this series, he continues painting subjects that inspired him early in his career such as bottles, dishes, vases, flowers, and containers among other things.
These paintings evoke the stillness and quiet of their surrounding environment with their soft, dimly lit colors. For instance, in a Natura morta painting from 1952, the background features a beige wall, covering half the canvas with slightly darker shades of brown beneath it to illustrate a table holding several types of white dishes, one turquoise dish, a white vase, and a pale, yellow cloth.
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| Natura motura (Still Life) (1952) by Giorgio Morandi |
A similar painting from 1956 depicts a pale grey wall with darker shades of grey illustrating a table holding a bottle, a dish, a round light green container, and several rectangular containers in white, pale yellow, and light pink. These items are clustered together in the center while the items in Natura morta (1952) were also in the center but somewhat more spread out as though each object had a little extra breathing room.
Notions of dominance and superiority come into play in a Natura morta painting from 1962 where a pitcher of water can be seen standing proudly above a trio of glasses lined up next to and touching each other. The water pitcher holds a lot of clout with its large, pointy top, titled slightly as though holding its head high. He also captures the negative space between the pitcher and it’s large, curvy handle.
Giorgio Morandi was born in 1890 in Bologna, Italy, where he lived until his death in 1964. Today, his work can be found in hundreds of public and private collections across the country and around the world including the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York.
At David Zwirner, 537 W. 20th St., through Dec. 19. The gallery is open Tue.-Sat. from 10 a.m.-6 p.m.
