Bologna, the Epoca exhibition by Mario De Biasi at Casa Morandi

Bologna, the Epoca exhibition by Mario De Biasi at Casa Morandi.

A Casa Morandi the programming of exhibition events dedicated to artists who, with their work, in various capacities and through different media, have established a relationship with Giorgio Morandi is consolidated. About that Thursday 24 November 2022 at 18.00 pm inauguration The “Epoch” of Mario De Biasi. Morandi through the lens, photographic exhibition which presents an extraordinary series of unposed portraits of the artist in his domestic environment, taken in 1959 by Mario De Biasi, then a photojournalist for "Epoca". The exhibition, curated by Lorenza Selleri e Silvia De Biasi - daughter of the photographer and manager of her father's archive - will remain visible until 5 February 2023 in the spaces of what was the home-studio of the Bolognese master.

It was April 1959 when Mario De Biasi, sent by Enzo Biagi, young director of the magazine “Epoca”, he goes to via Fondazza 36 to make a reportage on Giorgio Morandi. Known for his shy character and reluctance towards any form of exposure of his person, the artist nevertheless agreed to be photographed within the walls of his home, in the living room where guests were welcomed, strictly in a jacket and tie.
The service gives us a Morandi who is not posing, who does not assume unnatural or forced attitudes, falling perfectly into a genre that De Biasi had already experimented with, that of portraits of famous people caught in their everyday life, for which he had coined the definition: " portraits in shirt sleeves”. As Lorenza Selleri writes in the text that accompanies the exhibition:

"This seems to be the choice shared with De Bias who in a continuous series of shots manages to portray the artist in attitudes of apparent naturalness and ease. Morandi however he cannot look straight at the camera and De Bias he doesn't seem to be bothered by it, but rather manages to transform the artist's obvious embarrassment into his strong point. If the standing posture does not seem to satisfy either of you (after all, it is not easy to position your hands in such a way as to remove stiffness and clumsiness), the one sitting at the nineteenth-century round table, with your hands intent on leafing through the pages of some books or lighting a cigarette, it's perfect."  

We thus witness situations of domestic routine, between books to leaf through as a source of pleasant erudition, the inevitable cigarette between the fingers and the coffee served by his sister Maria Teresa, who manages to tear a rare smile from the always composed and austere Morandi. The selection of volumes that the master chose to browse during De Biasi's visit is interesting: on the table it is possible to recognize the most important work by the German art historian Grete Ring, A century of French painting 1400-1500, in which Morandi focuses on the famous panel with the Trinity and Stories of Saint Denis by Henri Bellechose, as well as on the details of the Triptych with the Raising of Lazarus by Nicolas Froment. Furthermore, probably to find common ground with the photographer in front of him, the monograph by Henri Cartier Bresson is present on the table, Images à la Sauvette, gift that Michelangelo Antonioni sent to Morandi a few days earlier.

The De Bias Unfortunately, like no other photographer, he did not have the opportunity to portray the artist at work in the studio, in the certainly most identifying act, that of painting, nor was he allowed to include the easel, the brushes, the palette, the colors and objects protagonists of the artistic research of Giorgio Morandi. The photographs, however, give us a vivid insight into an environment of the house in via Fondazza, of the arrangement of the furnishings, furnishings and paintings as they were positioned and experienced at the time.

Explain further Lorenza Selleri, going into detail about Morandi's physiognomy "read" by the photojournalist and the context in which he was photographed:

"De Bias he also focused his attention on the physiognomy of Morandi, the elongated face, «the halo of white hair of a Giottesque friar» (Angelo Del Boca, Morandi 'the one with the bottles' forgave his students seven times, in 'Il Mattino dell'Italia Centrale', Florence, 23 October 1953) the strongly pronounced lower lip, the round glasses with dark tortoiseshell frames always on the nose or at most raised on the forehead (almost as if to echo the famous photograph by Herbert List from 1953). So that, shot after shot, he created a sequence of intense and strongly expressive close-ups of a brooding and frowning mood at the same time.. [...] De Bias he managed to penetrate the stronghold of that apartment and make known through his shots the original appearance of that room, which Morandi chose as a photographic set, and which no longer exists today. His images fully convey that "sense of sober, measured, decorous bourgeois comfort" that Arnaldo Beccaria would write about in 1963 (Arnaldo Beccaria, The painter who hates money, in 'Tempo', 26 October 1963). A few pieces of nineteenth-century style furniture in dark walnut, polished, frame the figure of Morandi. [...] The warm light of a chandelier spreads everywhere creating a particularly evocative atmosphere thanks to the reflections and plays of light created by the crystal drops and De Bias he seems to be fascinated by it."

Alongside the nineteen photographs taken in Morandi's home in Bologna, the public will be able to see five other portraits taken by De Biasi in Milano, in which the Bolognese master is present thanks to his own works: three of these show Lamberto Vitali in his apartment, surrounded by fourteen paintings by Morandi, and two others have as their subject Elio Vittorini, intent on reading and writing in his study, where one can be glimpsed Still life by Morandi, without frame, dated 1949.

On the occasion of The “Epoch” of Mario De Biasi. Morandi through the lens an agile is made available publication in Italian and English which includes a text by Lorenza Selleri and a selection of images of the works on display.
The exhibition is accompanied by documents, original issues of the weekly "Epoca" (coming from the museum archive and the Library of the Parri Historical Institute), books from the artist's personal library and from a video interview with Mario De Biasi realized by Laura Leonelli in 2005 for the program “Leonardo TV".