Giovanni Colacicchi
Natura Morta (Still Life)
About the SessionSpanning 4 centuries of global art history, The International Sale, presents 127 exceptional lots by artists from 27 countries across five continents. The auction highlights masterworks ranging from 17th century European paintings to post-2000 editions by contemporary artist's such as Mr Brainwash (lot 51), Jim Dine (lots 83-86), Isaac Julien (lot 108), Jeff Koons (45), and Lucas Samaras (lot 107 and 110). The sale is anchored by important pieces from Georg Baselitz, Erik Laubscher, Shirin Neshat, and a newly repatriated 1935 portrait by Irma Stern.
The auction's diversity is driven by rare museum-quality highlights, led by Irma Stern's Two Women (lot 31), which returns to South Africa after decades in a Berlin private collection. It is joined by Erik Laubscher's rare recto-verso painting Young Family / Construction (lot 48), an Iranian-American artist Shirin Neshat photographic portrait linked to her award-winning Turbulent installation (lot 66), and a uniquely hand-coloured linocut by German master Georg Baselitz titled Das Pferd, Im Wald und auf der Heide Series (The Horse, in the Forest and on the Heath Series) (lot 72).
LOT 55
Giovanni Colacicchi
Natura Morta (Still Life)
Incl. Buyer's Premium & VAT
About this Item
signed; numbered IV on the reverse
Provenance
Strauss & Co, Johannesburg, 30 November 2021, lot 672.
Notes
Giovanni Colacicchi, born in Anagni, south of Rome, was an Italian figurative painter, teacher and critic, closely associated with Florence and the Italian Novecento movement. Colacicchi initially studied literature and wrote poetry, but by the early 1920s, painting had become his central vocation. Colacicchi's principal teacher was Francesco Franchetti, whom he regarded as his true artistic master.
During the 1920s, Colacicchi frequented the Caffè delle Giubbe Rosse in Florence, a meeting place for the city’s artistic and literary circles. There, he encountered figures including Aldo Palazzeschi (1885-1974), Eugenio Montale (1896-1981), and Libero Andreotti (1875-1933). He became an active participant in Florence’s intellectual community and helped establish the literary-cultural journals Rivista di Firenze in 1924 and Solaria in 1926.
In 1935, Colacicchi travelled to South Africa, where he spent almost a year. He held solo exhibitions in Stellenbosch and at Ashbey's Galleries in Cape Town, exhibiting works brought from Italy alongside paintings inspired by the South African landscape. His Cape Town subjects included Mouille Point and Saldanha Bay.
Colacicchi was primarily a figurative painter, drawing on influences ranging from the Italian Renaissance and classical Mediterranean art to the enigmatic qualities of Metaphysical painting.
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