Morandi Museum showcases works by the Bolognese master from the Catanese collection

From December 3, 2022 to February 26, 2023, the Morandi Museum presents the exhibition Giorgio Morandi. Works from the Antonio and Matilde Catanese Collection, curated by Mariella Gnani. Twenty-seven works belonging to the private collection of Antonio and Matilde Catanese, born of their passion for art and refined taste, will be made visible to the public on this occasion; the couple began buying early Morandi works as early as the 1960s.

The exhibition stems precisely from the Catanese family ’s desire to make part of the collection available to the public. The passion towards Giorgio Morandi ’s production on the part of the Catanese couple is well outlined by Antonio Catanese, in some passages of the interview granted to the curator of the exhibition: “In front of a work by Morandi, I feel like an active subject, not a passive one, as I do not with other authors, albeit important ones, whom I have chosen and with whom I surround myself. But with Morandi it is different. His painting forces me into prolonged observation of the subject. With each reflection on the brushstroke, on the slight variation of color, on the perceived dust, I feel that I must stay longer, return with my thoughts to grasp more.”

The exhibition kicks off with a rare Youthful Self-Portrait from 1914, formerly in the Valdameri collection, which took part in the Golden Gate International Exposition in San Francisco in 1939, and continues with a series of still lifes, flowers and landscapes, made between 1918 and 1959. Ten works are then exhibited, including oils, watercolors and etchings, which have as their subject the theme of flowers so dear to Morandi: through these works the public has the opportunity to trace the various types starting with the 1918 watercolor, a specimen that testifies to a great technical ability already fully acquired.

The theme of still life, interpreted through the language of painting and engraving, with the sole exception of a drawing, is developed in parallel with that of landscapes, including the painting La strada bianca (The White Road), created in Grizzana and taken up again in some variants in 1939 and 1941.

Most of the works on display boast animportant collecting history: examples include the 1941 Landscape, which passed from Pietro Feroldi’s important collection to that of Gianni Mattioli and later came to that of Mr. and Mrs. Plaza; the Flowers, formerly in the Jucker collection; or the Still Life of 1940, formerly in the Rockefeller collection.

Also an integral part of the exhibition is a selection of etchings (the Catanese collection owns almost the entire production), a technique that Morandi practiced as a self-taught artist and always considered as a parallel language to painting.

As Maria Cristina Bandera, an art historian and member of the Governing Council and Scientific Commission of the Roberto Longhi Foundation for the Study of Art History, points out, the Catanese collection represents “an exemplary microcosm for deciphering and understanding Morandi’s activity.” This is due above all to the number of works in the collection, made over a time span that covers almost all the years of the Bolognese master’s activity and that address all the themes and techniques he dealt with, as well as for the undoubted relevance of the pieces that are part of it.

Accompanying the exhibition is a publication published by Silvana Editoriale, with critical texts by Mariella Gnani, Maria Cristina Bandera, Luca Cecchetto, Federica Bucolini, Paolo Triolo, Sabrina Burattini, and Laura Valentini, and fact sheets of the ninety works belonging to the Catanese collection edited by Stella Seitun.

For the realization of the exhibition, thanks are due to theUniversity of Urbino Carlo Bo | School of Conservation and Restoration, which supported the curator for the control of the works during the exhibition period and for some investigations related to the characterization of materials, digital documentation and non-invasive diagnostics.

For info: www.museibologna.it

Image: Giorgio Morandi, Still Life (1949; oil on canvas, 35 x 45 cm; Antonio and Matilde Catanese Collection) © Giorgio Morandi by SIAE, 2022.

Morandi Museum showcases works by the Bolognese master from the Catanese collection

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