Carlo Carrà

Galleria Anna d'Ascanio, Rome
Acquired from the above by the present owner

Hannover, Kestner-Gesellschaft, Zeichnungen, 1981, no. 52, illustrated in the catalogue
Jerusalem, The Israel Museum, Monet to Matisse: Modern Masters from Swiss Private Collections, 1988-89, illustrated in the catalogue 

Massimo Carrà & Franco Russoli, Carra Disegni, Bologna, 1977, no. 248, illustrated p. 230

Executed on cream wove paper, laid down on a thin sheet of Japan paper and t-hinged to the mount in the upper two corners. All four edges have been unevenly cut. Apart from a small diagonal repaired tear in the upper right corner and a few small supported tears along the right and left edges, and some surface dirt, this work is in good condition. Colours: In comparison to the printed catalogue illustration, the paper has a lighter tone in the original.
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NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

The present work was executed during the apotheosis of the development of the metaphysical art movement in Italy in the early 20^th Century. Executed in Ferrara, at the military convalescent hospital where Carrà founded the Scuola Metafisic atogether with de Chirico, it is testament to their friendship and shared concerns in the development of their art. They created a common iconography which formed a distinctive pictorial language. Their friendship began as Carrà was advised by his friend Ardengo Soffici, painter and intellectual, to contact Giorgio de Chirico, who was also residing in Ferrara. A long epistolary exchange occurred between the two before their meeting in April 1917.

In the Ospedale Neurologico Militare they were allowed to paint freely and receive friends, and the year in which the present work was executed represents one of the most prolific and important periods in Carrà and de Chirico’s artistic output. The influence of de Chirico is undeniable in La Piazza, though the archetypal mannequin has become a more human, increasingly malleable presence. Within a delineated spatial setting formed of overlapping planes, the two figures captured by the artist are diametrically opposed to each other, perhaps as images of artistic introspection and extroversion. Carrà creates an enigmatic image, where the void and shadows act as protagonists in their own right. In La Piazza the artist firmly establishes a new and mysterious relationship of figures and spatial interaction, building a world freed from conventional logic and common-sense causality.