Alberto Savinio

Jeanne Castel, Paris

Gianna Sistu, Paris

Galerie Île de France, Paris

Galleria La Bussola, Turin

Galleria Medea, Milan

Galleria d'Arte Moderna Farsetti, Prato

Gino Lizzola, Milan

Galleria Sant'Agostino, Turin

Galleria dello Scudo, Verona

Private Collection (acquired from the above)

Thence by descent to the present owners

Milan, Galleria Medea, 44 opere di Alberto Savinio, 1970, no. 21, illustrated in the catalogue

Cortina d'Ampezzo, Grand Hotel Savoia, Rassegna di maestri contemporanei, 1970, no no. (titled Paesaggio and dated 1930)

Verona, Palazzo Forti & Galleria dello Scudo, Savinio, gli anni di Parigi. Dipinti 1927-1932, 1990-91, no. 31, illustrated p. 189

Lugano, Villa Ciani, Alberto Savinio, dipinti 1927-1952, 1991, no.11, pp. 52 & 53

London, Accademia Italiana delle Arti e delle Arti Applicate, Alberto Savinio, Paintings and Drawings, 1925-1952, no. 11, illustrated in colour in the catalogue p. 53

Dusseldorf, Kunstsammlung Nordheim-Westfalen, Die andere De Chirico/Savinio, 2001, no. 141, illustrated in colour in the catalogue p. 333

Conegliano, Galleria Comunale d'Arte, Da Ca' Pesaro a Morandi: Arte in Italia 1919-1945 dalle collezioni Private, 2002

Luigi Cavallo & Pia Vivarelli, Savinio disegni immaginati, 1925-1932, Milan, 1984, no. 29, pp. 88 & 141

Maurizio Fagiolo dell'Arco, Alberto Savinio, Milan, 1989, no. 62, illustrated pp. 149 & 243 (titled Paradiso terrestre)

AA. VV., Arte Moderna, Catalogo dell'Arte Moderna Italiana, Milan, 1990, no. 26, illustrated p. 248 (titled Paradiso terrestre)

Pia Vivarelli, Alberto Savinio, catalogo generale, Milan, 1996, no. 1929 36, illustrated p. 76

The canvas is not lined and there do not appear to be any traces of retouching visible under UV light. There is some light frame rubbing with minor associated paint losses to the extreme edges. There are two spots of paint loss on the upper right edge and two minor flecks of paint loss in the centre of the red element. Some fine lines of stable craquelure to some of the pastel-coloured pigments. A very minor spot of craquelure to the brown pigment on the lower left corner. This work is in overall very good condition.
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In 1926 Alberto Savinio accompanied by his wife Maria Morino followed his brother Giorgio de Chirico to Paris, where he was introduced to the bohemian avant-garde artistic circle in which de Chirico played a pivotal role. The two became an inseparable duo in Parisian social and artistic spheres, meeting a number of key influencers such as Guillaume Apollinaire and André Breton. Previously working as a composer and writer along with his brother, Savinio professionally took up painting at that time.  It was in Paris that he met Jeanne Castel, the first owner of this work. Castel was the legendary dealer Paul Guillaume’s secretary and professional partner; an art dealer herself and particularly influential through this connection. She was one of the first to take interest in Savinio's work and officially signed him up at the end of 1927 where he began a prolific series of paintings. That year he also held a solo exhibition presented by Jean Cocteau at the Galerie Bernheim Jeune effectively launching his career as a painter.

Beginning in 1928, Savinio was exploring the theme of nature inhabited by external and artificial objects, juxtaposing Surrealist and Metaphysical concepts. In the present work, Savinio blurs our understanding of nature and reality in a dramatically theatrical arrangement.  He depicts the forest and trees inhabiting the central foreground of the composition in unexpected vivid blue tones, their shapes highlighted by jagged lines of bright and incongruous colours acting as a scenic backdrop. Senza titolo from 1929, then follows, on a formal level, a small number of works focusing on the relationship between landscape and the natural world, and the incongruence of abstraction. In the present work, the painter seems to explore the concept of natura naturans, with nature seemingly in mutation and seemingly interrupted by the advance of abstraction in the background, creating a figurative contrast of elements and forms. This contrast of forms and visual ambivalence is central to the understanding of Savinio’s artistic practice and his wish to translate his understanding of reality into a profound artistic vision of complete liberation. 

According to Savinio, the artistic act is ‘to attempt the generous embrace of Nature in its wholeness […] to know the reason governing everything and penetrating everything…having established this single thread, the neutral zones, which appeared to separate the real from the unreal, the fact from the assumed, the physical from the metaphysical, are reconciled’. (Alberto Savinio in Valori Plastici, Rome, 1919, pp. 6 & 7, quoted in Pia Vivarelli, ‘Alberto Savinio the Painter. Myth and History in the Reality of the Present’, in Luigi Cavallo & Pia Vivarelli, Savinio disegni immaginati, 1925-1932, Milan, 1984, p. 17)