Ottone Rosai ^©  

(Firenze, 1895 - Ivrea, 1957)

Signed and dated lower right. On the reverse: in black crayon "259" [carriage number of the Rosai inheritance); label Mostra 1983, Ministry of Cultural and Environmental Heritage. Exhibitions: 1948, XXIV Venice Biennale, Room XXVII, Venice (cat. p. 114, no. 30); 1976, Homage to Ottone Rosai, February 28, Galleria Santacroce, Florence, (reproduced in the cat., p. 16, pl. 6); 1983, Ottone Rosai works from 1911 to 1957, April - May, Palazzo Graneri, Turin (repr. in cat., p. 141, no. 90); 1983, Ottone Rosai opere dal 1911 al 1957, 20 July - 18 September, GNAM, Rome (repr. in cat., p. 155, n. 98); < span style="background-color: hsl(var(--bs-white)); text-align: var(--bs-body-text-align);">1983, Ottone Rosai works from 1911 to 1957, 13 November - 18 December, Palazzo Strozzi, Florence (repr. in cat. p. 155, n. 98); 2018, Ottone Rosai/Portraits and self-portraits A dialogue with Bacon and Baselitz, 9 August - 2 September, Farsettiarte, Cortina d'Ampezzo; 2018, Ottone Rosai /Portraits and self-portraits A dialogue with Bacon and Baselitz, 20 September - 10 October, Galleria Frediano Farsetti, Milan (repr. in cat. 41, no. 12).

In the video of the historic newsreel The Incom Week of June 23, 1948, ( "Biennale d'Arte in Venice: the Italian pavilion"), the presence of the work in this event is documented.

Authentication by Giovanni Faccenda on photo.

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In the beginning it was the cry painted by Munch in 1893 that gave an account of an existential malaise that would have invested the twentieth century like a flood wave. A mixture of worries, anxieties, sufferings, remote premonitions, difficult to explain even by those who are internally shaken, that we find ourselves, just over a decade later, in some drawings presented by Lorenzo Viani at the VII Venice Biennale. It won't be long before another Tuscan, Ottone Rosai, lit by curiosity for all that concerns the complications buried in the depths of the soul, come to shaping a new humanity, destined to remain as one of the most touching symbols and authentic twentieth century. […] The war, another world war – the second –, even more catastrophic, aggravates his anger with fate. As Italy stunned follows the progress of inexorable developments, new fire enlivens inside him with a disruptive blaze. Cafes, taverns, houses and houses are emptied streets: men shelter in second-hand shelters, crammed to capacity. A specter, that crowd, that «cannon fodder» 1 , which is striking in many figure paintings of the period: suffering diary originating from an increasingly exasperated analysis. Self-portraits, in particular, will be fundamental for Francis Bacon. In 1962, during a television interview at the largest information channel across the Channel, at asks which was the author who had most attracted his interest, he replied: «I do not hesitate to name Ottone Rosai, one of the greatest painters of this century: especially the Self-Portraits and Nudes, which he painted in the 1940s, have generated deep reflections in me and not a few startles". Nino also had a significant demonstration of this estimate, which remained unknown to most people Tirinnanzi – a pupil of Rosai like Caponi – who, during a trip to London, found himself by chance to meet the famous master of Anglo-Saxon expressionism. The painter from Greve told that, during the conversation, he heard the kind of closeness had with Rosai from his occasional interlocutor, Bacon abruptly interrupted him: "If you knew how much I admired you and how much your 1940s paintings were decisive for my training! Now I'll show them..." While the sentence remained a mid-air, together with the visitor's curiosity, Bacon got up from his chair and, approaching the his library, with a smug air he pulled out the catalog of an exhibition by Rosai.

Giovanni Faccenda