Still Life

Contemporary Art

1955

Giorgio Morandi
Italian, 1890-1964

Giorgio Morandi’s still lifes, typically produced in series, often feature a few closely positioned vases painted in subdued colors on small format canvases. Yet these humble vessels can seem monumental—as if, in the words of one 1950s critic, Morandi painted “cathedrals rather than bottles.” His signature buttery paint application imparts a rough-hewn quality to the work’s surface, while the muted, sun-baked color palette recalls the architecture of the artist’s native Bologna, Italy. The bottles’ symmetrical arrangement in particular imbues the work with a constructed linearity that demonstrates the quiet care with which Morandi composed this miniature world.

Status: Currently Off View
Department: Contemporary Art

Artist: Giorgio Morandi
Title: Still Life
Place: Italy (Artist's nationality:)
Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.: 1955
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: Unframed: 43.2 × 61.6 cm (17 1/16 × 24 5/16 in.); 43.2 × 61.6 cm (17 × 24 1/4 in.)
Credit Line: Harold L. Stuart Endowment
Reference Number: 2001.158
Copyright: © 2018 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / SIAE, Rome

Frederick P. Walkey, A Decade in Review, exh. cat. (Lincoln, MA: DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park, 1958), n.p. (ill.).
Works from Private Collections, exh. cat. (Boston: Boston University Art Gallery, 1960), n.p. (ill.).
Janet Abramowicz, Giorgio Morandi 1890–1964, exh. cat. (Cambridge, MA: Busch-Reisinger Museum at Harvard University, 1968), 43.
Lamberto Vitali, Morandi: Catalogo Generale, cat. raisonné (Milano: Electa, 1977), no. 968.
Art Institute of Chicago, Poetics of Scale: Small-Sized Works from the Collection of Modern and Contemporary Art, exh. checklist (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 2003), n.p. (ill.).
Stephanie D’Alessandro, “Still Life,” Art Institute of Chicago Museum Studies 29, 2 (2003), 80-81 (color ills.).

Lincoln, MA, DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park, A Decade in Review, April 27–June 1, 1958, cat. 53.
Boston, Boston University Art Gallery, Works from Private Collections, Apr. 23–May 14, 1960, cat. 64.
Cambridge, MA, Busch-Reisinger Museum at Harvard University, Giorgio Morandi 1890–1964, Jan. 12–Feb. 10, 1968, cat. 4.
Art Institute of Chicago, Poetics of Scale, Small-Sized Works from the Collection of Modern and Contemporary Art, June 5–Aug. 24, 2003, no. 22.

The artist; sold through Il Milione Galleria d’arte Moderna, Milan, to Ruth Villalovos (born 1933-, formerly Mrs. Ruth Agoos, Cambridge, MA), Graton, CA and Mexico, 1955 [letter from Julie Castellano, Zabriskie Gallery, Nov. 29, 2000, copy in curatorial object file]; sold through Zabriskie Gallery, New York, to the Art Institute of Chicago, May 14, 2001.

Object information is a work in progress and may be updated as new research findings emerge. To help improve this record, please email . Information about image downloads and licensing is available here.

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Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

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