R. Bianco Mixed Technique on Plywood Italy XX Century - Tableau doré

Untitled, 1998

Oil painting on canvas. Signed and dated lower right. Riccardo Licata, an eclectic artist who dedicated himself to painting, engraving, mosaic, sculpture and also scenography, has gone through various phases of artistic research and has been able to combine abstraction with a profound search for spatial rhythms marked by signs . His graphic-pictorial writing, inspired by music, has given a unique identity to his works, which stand out for the skilful use of symbols and graphic features. The work is presented in a frame.

Glimpse of the Country with Figures

Oil on wooden panel. Signed lower left. Vittore Antonio Cargnel, father of Lucio Cargnel, was mainly a landscape painter, author in particular of evocative views of Treviso and exciting glimpses of Friuli, his homeland. He is considered the spokesperson of intimate landscape painting, for his ability to freeze landscapes in the immediacy of atmospheric changes, often on small panels, so as not to miss the moment of a particular luministic condition responsible for the impression aroused in the artist. In this part of the town, the luminous contrast stands out between the square still dominated by the gray rain, highlighted by the umbrellas of passers-by - figures that are only indistinct spots, neutral elements of the landscape - and the light which, cutting through the clouds, illuminates and colours. the top of the buildings. The painting is presented in a contemporary frame.

Plato and Aristotle

Mixed media on canvas. Signature, title, date and dedication on the reverse. Paolo Baratella, a recently deceased artist from Ferrara, developed his art by composing vast pictorial cycles inspired by contemporary subjects; we therefore have series of works by him gathered under significant titles. From the mid-1980s and into the 2000s, his scenographic apparatuses became more enriched with cultural, pictorial and literal iconographic references. In particular, Baratella pays greater attention to the iconography of art, philosophy and history. In this work the artist presents the portraits of the two great Greek philosophers (taken from their traditional classical depictions) and shades them in a frame of pink-blue colours. The two individual canvases are placed side by side inside a worked wooden frame, on whose two horizontal crosspieces the words "Timaeus" a work written by Plato, and "Ethics", a recurring theme of Aristotelian philosophy, are engraved.

Female Figure 1993

Polychrome bronze sculpture on stone base. Signature and date on the base. Guido Lodigiani, a Milanese sculptor who is still active and a passionate teacher at the Brera Academy, said of his art: " believe that the artist is called to show the root of human experience and in this way to excite again". And the root of existence, its womb, is the woman, whom Lodigiani considers the Woman of the Announcement, an expression of the restless and intimate tension towards the mystery of creation. Lodigiani's sculpture extracts form, as if from a mother's womb, starting from an original nucleus of matter in which it excavates voids and tensions. This plastic tension is well expressed in this naked female figure, seated but twisted, as if she had just emerged from indistinct matter and tended upwards, towards life, towards the light.

Girl in armchair

Terracotta sculpture. Signed lower right. Marco Cornini, a Milanese artist trained at the Brera Academy, works mainly with terracotta, with which he creates human figures, both male and female, men and women, or better yet boys and girls of more or less the same generation, in moments of their intimacy, often as a couple but also individually, with sentimental, erotic and passionate values. Here we see a naked woman sitting in an armchair in a room, in an attitude of intimate desperation.

The Organ-Grinder

Oil painting on canvas. Signed lower right. Trace of a date, not readable. The Cuneo artist Ottavio Steffanini had a life in constant movement, divided between Italy, Europe, America (in particular Venezuela). A restless and unpredictable artist, he concentrated his painting above all on female figures, portrayed with placid sensuality and an opulence influenced by the Spanish masters with whom he studied. But in his production there is no shortage of other subjects, united by an incessant exaltation of life, of nature. Here, however, a male figure is proposed, a half-length portrait of an accordion player, dignified and proud in his pose and gaze. The work is presented in a period frame.

Figure in Rest 1969

Pen on paper. Signed lower right. Accompanied by photo authentication from the Mario Tozzi Archive. In Maestro Tozzi's extensive production there are many drawings, such as this one presented here, made with different techniques (ink, pastel, pencil, sanguine), dedicated to the human figure: in his dry and stylized style, Mario Tozzi outlines stylized, refined figurines in their silent and discreet geometry, favored by the absence of color, which brings out the forms on the white paper. Even in his pictorial production, Mario Tozzi's favorite subjects are, classically, figures and still lifes, but both figures and death are a set of solid geometric elements, the sphere, the cylinder, the cone, etc. The bodies are elementary, essential in the lines and details, powerful, statuesque, composed of just modeled solids, while the still lifes are a celebration of Euclidean geometry such as the jugs, bowls, flasks which are paradigms of volume and geometric rigor . Mario Tozzi's compositions are influenced by Cubism for certain cuts, by Metaphysics for certain architectural insertions and by Abstractism for the insertion of geometric figures. The work is presented in a frame.

Mixed media on canvas. The large scene, painted in the unique reddish-pink range, features two large figures on the right, while the entire left side is occupied by a desert landscape, with the waves of the dunes fading into the distance. The two figures depict a seated horseman, wearing a turban and Saracen dress, being fed by a maiden in Western dress, who is handing him a tray laden with food, while on the shelf below is a basin of water, ears of corn and various fruits. This could be one of the many representations of the story of Angelica and Medoro, recounted by Ariosto in Orlando Furioso, which tells of the love between the Christian maiden and the Saracen knave wounded in a clash, who then fled together to Catai, thus triggering Orlando's madness. The work is presented in a frame.

In Brianza

Oil painting on canvas. At the bottom left there is the DB monogram. Title and gallery stamp on the back. The glimpse of the Brianza countryside, still flat, sees a shepherd who lets his cows graze in the meadows immediately outside the village, near the dirt road flanked by light poles; two bare and thin trunks stand vertically, almost parallel, dividing the scene into three shots. The work is presented in a coeval frame.

Sur le Canapé d'Argent pâle 1911

Color lithograph on vellum paper. The title at the bottom left. On the passepartout the name and the wording "original lithographie". It is planche n.10 of the "Amour" series, created in 1899 by the French artist and inspired by the love poems Denis wrote for his future wife, Marthe Meurier. Some replicas of the initial series were made, of which the one on tissue paper dated 1911. Maurice Denis, French painter, was artistically formed in coincidence with the birth of the symbolist movement that strongly influenced him, imposing himself for his simplicity and for his philosophy of a art that was a synthesis between the external world and the artist's spirituality. In his earliest works, the pictorial style was naturalist and neo-impressionist, but over time tended towards a pure decorativism, characterized by areas of flat color and clear outlines. In 1888, at the Julian Academy in Paris, Maurice Denis founded with Paul Sérusier, Pierre Bonnard and Paul Ranson, the group of painters Nabis (Prophets), a group that drew on the works and poetics of Paul Gauguin in their aesthetic ideals. , for the overcoming of Impressionist naturalism through a return to primitive and Japanese art. Of the Nabis meetings, usually held in the editorial office of the magazine "Revue Blanche" or at the Ranson Academy, Denis particularly appreciated the mystical climate, the esoteric jargon and the nickname that each painter received from the group: Denis was called "the Nabi by the nice pictures". As "Nabi" Maurice Denis painted intimate, enigmatic pictures and the themes of his painting, of a religious nature or situations of everyday life, were brought into an ideal and unreal dimension, in an atmosphere of warm and serene intimacy, obtained with an extremely delicate feature. A constant in his life was the profession of the Catholic faith, which always had a priority role for him. He received numerous commissions for the decoration of churches and this made him return to the great tradition of mural painting by performing solemn frescoes of monumental structure, inspired by a literary Catholicism. The religious fervor led Maurice Denis to found, in 1919, the Ateliers d'Art Sacré, dedicating a lot of time to prayer, so much so that he became the tertiary of San Domenico, without isolating him from the world, for which he participated in the social life of the time. In addition to his vast production as a painter, Denis was a great draftsman and illustrator. Until his death Maurice Denis continued to paint in a modern interpretation of the great ancient painting, supported by his strong artistic vein, continuously fueled by his travels, many of them in Italy, which led him to come into direct contact with the Pre-Raphaelites and the neoclassicals.

Untitled 1930

Ink on paper. Signature and date below. Accompanied by authentication on photo from Galleria Giò Marconi in Milan and stamp from private archive. It is the drawing of the young artist who soon became one of the most important exponents of world surrealism, who was a poet and painter, but also a filmmaker, art and film critic, photographer and humorous designer. Born in the north of France, in 1927 he settled in Paris, where he came into contact with a group of young poets and philosophers, with whom he founded the '' Grand Jeu '' movement: play is understood as an art of living. Since 1928 he has collaborated with texts, poems and drawings for the movement's magazine and in the meantime he collaborates as an editor and reporter with various Parisian newspapers.In 1932, having exhausted the experience of the `` Grand Jeu '', he passes to the surrealist movement, collaborating on its publications and participating in its exhibitions. His humor turns towards the unusual and cruelty, more and more derisive of the absurdity of everyday life, of the tragic side of common existence, to which the spirit and the unconscious rebel, trying to access the unobservable. Knows Salvador Dalí. In 1939 he also began his activity as a filmmaker. In 1941 his first personal exhibition took place in Paris: the first buyer was Pablo Picasso. Participate in all surrealist exhibitions, including the 1947 international one in Paris. In 1951, for reasons relating to the internal discipline of the group, he abandoned the surrealist movement with others, while continuing to practice its poetics. In 1955 he also became passionate about photography. Since 1968 he has devoted himself almost exclusively to painting, abandoning the activity of humorous draftsman. In the same year he settled permanently in Milan: in Italy he exhibited in various personal exhibitions, those in Milan at the Galleria Marconi. The work presented here, an early drawing, comes from an important Milanese private collection. It is presented in a frame.

Le Prophète 1927

Ink on paper. Signature, date and title below. Accompanied by authentication on photo from Galleria Giò Marconi in Milan and stamp from private archive. It is the drawing of the young artist who soon became one of the most important exponents of world surrealism, who was a poet and painter, but also a filmmaker, art and film critic, photographer and humorous designer. Born in the north of France, in 1927 he settled in Paris, where he came into contact with a group of young poets and philosophers, with whom he founded the '' Grand Jeu '' movement: play is understood as an art of living. Since 1928 he has collaborated with texts, poems and drawings for the movement's magazine and in the meantime he collaborates as an editor and reporter with various Parisian newspapers.In 1932, having exhausted the experience of the `` Grand Jeu '', he passes to the surrealist movement, collaborating on its publications and participating in its exhibitions. His humor turns towards the unusual and cruelty, more and more derisive of the absurdity of everyday life, of the tragic side of common existence, to which the spirit and the unconscious rebel, trying to access the unobservable. Knows Salvador Dalí. In 1939 he also began his activity as a filmmaker. In 1941 his first personal exhibition took place in Paris: the first buyer was Pablo Picasso. Participate in all surrealist exhibitions, including the 1947 international one in Paris. In 1951, for reasons relating to the internal discipline of the group, he abandoned the surrealist movement with others, while continuing to practice its poetics. In 1955 he also became passionate about photography. Since 1968 he has devoted himself almost exclusively to painting, abandoning the activity of humorous draftsman. In the same year he settled permanently in Milan: in Italy he exhibited in various personal exhibitions, those in Milan at the Galleria Marconi. The work presented here, an early drawing, comes from an important Milanese private collection. It is presented in a frame.