Giorgio Morandi

If you haven't heard of Giorgio Morandi - well, apart from asking 'Where have you been?', then the best way to describe him is to say that if Johannes Vermeer had been a 20th Century Italian Still Life painter, he would have been Giorgio Morandi. His paintings are distinguished by their calm, balanced order, his practice by its rigour, and his determination to look, keep looking, and find the beauty of the everyday. His cast of characters act out a domestic drama of subtle movements, shifts and changes, that reveal their varied nature - who knew that a jug could be that complex?,

Parallel to his paintings, his etchings display a technique like no other, which is second to none. With bravura displays of subtlety, nuance, and widely varied moods, they take on the very nature of seeing itself. 

To celebrate its 25th Anniversary, The Estorick Collection is hosting the exhibition Giorgio Morandi: Masterpieces from the Magnani-Rocca Foundation, made up of 50 works which have never been seen together in Britain before. It has also allowed them to display much of their own rich holdings of Morandi's work. 

This talk will consider both displays and, through a careful exploration of the individual pieces, we will discover much about Morandi's life and career.