Natura Morta (Still Life)

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. His principal teacher was Francesco Franchetti, whom Colacicchi 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.