ORAZI

This article is about ORAZI; not to be confused with Manuel Orazi.
ORAZI
ORAZI c. 1960
Born28 February 1906 (1906-02-28)
France
Died19 January 1979(1979-01-19) (aged 72)
Movementnouvelle École de Paris

ORAZI (who wrote his name in capital letters), was born in 1906 and died in 1979. He was a painter of the French School (École Française), mentioned as a member of the School of Paris (École de Paris or nouvelle École de Paris).

His works shifted from figurative art to abstract art, which was often characterised by matter in relief rising from the canvas surface. He called this phase: Painture en Relief (Painting in Relief). He returned to figurative painting in his latest phase.[1]

In Paris, he had his studio on Boulevard du Montparnasse from 1934. At that time, the district of Montparnasse had replaced Montmartre as the artistic centre of Paris. After the Second World War, in 1946–1947, he moved to another atelier - in a quiet street of Montparnasse - and he maintained the same address until his death.

He steadily exhibited his works, for over three decades from 1947 until his death at the Salon de Mai, of which he became a "historic member." The Salon de Mai was the art association founded in Paris in 1943 (declared in 1944) in opposition to Nazi ideology. In the introductory note to the 1979 Catalogue of the Salon de Mai, "La volonté de Continuer" (the will to continue), his death was remembered by Gaston Diehl, Founding President, with these words: "I care to remember those who have recently left us [...] and most especially two painters who were for so long faithful companions in our artistic path: ORAZI and BURTIN."[2]

In 1952 he was appointed a member (Sociétaire) of the Painting Section of the Salon d'Automne Society, the Parisian art institution founded in 1903 with the aim of encouraging development of the fine arts and organizing the annual art exhibition the Salon d'Automne.[3]

Throughout his career, from 1932 until his death in 1979, he participated in a long series of exhibitions, including many solo exhibitions, mostly in Paris, but also elsewhere in France, Italy and Europe, America, and Japan. There have also been some solo exhibitions after his death, from 1980 to 2006.

In 2009, the American photographer and artist Peter Beard reproduced four paintings by ORAZI - from his Peintures en Relief (Paintings in Relief)[4] - in the Pirelli Calendar.[5]

For his artistic career, he adopted the pseudonym ORAZI. The name derives from the Roman antiquity and represented in the artistic field - since the 17th century - by a series of artists of the same family tree, active in France but who were originally from the Bologna area and central Italy.[6]

Career

In 1937 the Parisian art gallery 'Galerie de Paris' organised his solo exhibition.[7] In 1937 and 1938, he exhibited at the First and Second Salon des Jeunes Artistes in Paris.[8]

He was again in Italy. His paintings (Paulette; Wally; Young woman dressed in blue) were exhibited in 1934 and 1936 at the 'Esposizione Internazionale d'Arte di Venezia', the 'Venice Biennale', an international cultural event increasingly important, and in 1935 at the 'Quadriennale d'Arte Nazionale', in Rome (Jasmine;Young woman resting with her cat).[9]

The works of those years, until approximately 1946, were essentially portraits, still lives, landscapes, compositions. They highlight the distinctive elements of ORAZI's painting, which was characterized not only by its ties with the historic French Avant-gardes, but also the great names of the French Post-impressionist art. The research on colour, in the physical representation of objects and characters, takes in all those works a predominant place.[10]

The French art critic Jean-Pierre Pietri called ORAZI's new style Peinture du Mouvement (Painting the Movement), for his search for dynamic and plastic effects of human gesture and animal movement, together with the strength of colours.[11]

In his tempera L'Exode he depicted a long convoy of refugees fleeing Nazi invasion: it was exhibited in Paris at the Salon d'Automne of 1952.[12]

The paintings of the Peinture du Mouvement, a series dedicated to Circus characters (clowns, horsewomen, riders, athletes, ballet dancers), were exhibited in Paris, at the Salon de Mai in 1952 and 1953, at the Salon d'Automne and at the Deuxième Biennale de Menton in 1953, at ORAZI's solo exhibition held at the Parisian art gallery 'Galerie Marcel Bernheim' in 1954.[13]

Moreover, he painted a series of large compositions representing Historic Battles (and also officers on horseback, Dragoons and Carabinieri): some of them were exhibited at the Salon de Mai of 1955 and 1956, at the Salon des Indépendants of 1957, in Paris, and at the Milanese art gallery 'L'Annunciata' in 1959.[14]

In 1954, the editorial staff of the journal Les Lettres Françaises proposed to ORAZI illustrating the short-story titled The Story of a Soldier Who Brought a Cannon Home, written by the journalist and novelist Italo Calvino.[15]

From the end of the Fifties, ORAZI worked in abstract art. He showed his paintings at the Salon de Mai of 1960 and 1961,[16] and above all in a solo exhibition held in Paris at the 'Galerie 7', in 1961. This exhibit was introduced to public by the French art critic and writer Michel Courtois,[17] and was praised by the critics.[18] The French edition of the New York Herald Tribune wrote that he "shows succulently painted variations on single tones - gold, red, tender blue - [...] And yet these apostrophes to pure colour do have a life on their own and a craftsmanship that delights the eye. He is one of a group of painters who are trying to put European abstractart on its feet, so that it can stand without American aid, and he may succeed."[19]

ORAZI's art was based on nature, its elements, and its phenomena (flowers, sands, stones, rocks, volcanic lava, streams, sea shores, sea beds, eruptions, storms, petrified meteorites).[20] The art critic Jean-Jacques Lévèque wrote on ORAZI's exhibition of 1966 at the Parisian art gallery 'Galerie du Passeur': "With ORAZI, who exhibits at the Gallery of the Passeur[...] it is a spectacle. A natural spectacle, of the life of soil, of the harsh and poignant thrusts that structure the natural world. Knotty, convulsive shapes suddenly take hold of space and in their irresistible momentum blossom beyond the limits imposed by the paintings' frame."[21]

ORAZI's works were, at first, in low relief. One of them, Été (Summer), has been exhibited at the Salon de Mai of 1962, not only in Paris but also in Tokyo, Osaka, and Yawata.[22] Then, the relief became progressively higher, and the shapes extended beyond the limits of the canvas and chassis.[23] They have been annually exhibited at the Salon de Mai, in Paris, from 1962 to 1979, as well as in other exhibitions in France and Europe,[24] among which the ORAZI's solo exhibition of 1966 at the art gallery 'Galerie du Passeur', in Paris. A drawing of the work by ORAZI entitled Alpha-Oméga was reproduced on the invitation brochure to the 1966 exhibition; Alpha-Oméga would also have been exhibited at the Salon de Mai of 1971.[25]

The critic of the time was very positive, as expressed in an article written by the French art critic Raoul-Jean Moulin: "[...] the painter puts under test the stone, the plant, the air, the light[...] Natural materials, harsh and whirling, streams of eruptive lava, petrified meteorites[...] moments in the formation of the universe."; or as in Georges Boudaille's: "Matter is embossed, rises now like the earth's crust, now like petals of flowers; forms proliferate and leave the limits of the frame to invade space[...] there are lands, but also volcanic lava, tree barks, rocks, mountains."[26]

Quite often Paintings in Relief demonstrate ORAZIs tendency to create circular shapes on canvas surface. A tendency that would become fundamental in the next artistic phase (1970–1977), called Ligne Circulaire (Circular Line), in which the artist break away from the work in relief.

ORAZI was also a writer. In 1974, his tale - written at the beginning of the 70s - was published in Paris.[27]

References

  1. ^ Bénézit, Emmanuel, Dictionnaire critique et documentaire des Peintres, Sculpteurs, Dessinateurs et Graveurs, Nouvelle édition, T. VIII, p. 27, Paris, Librairie Gründ, 1976; see also the voice ORAZI (Orazio) in Benezit Dictionary of Artists in Oxford Art Online www.oxfordartonline.com/public/book/oao_benz, which however modifies the French text introducing errors regarding the Artist's origin and year of death.
  2. ^ XXXVème Salon de Mai, Chapiteau de la Ville de Paris, Parvis de la Tour Montparnasse, 1979, Catalogue p. 3. In 1979 the Salon de Mai exhibited ORAZI's work titled Portrait d'Hélène (portrait of Hélène): Catalogue n.109, painting reproduced on p. 20. The painting had been delivered to the Salon de Mai by ORAZI's wife together with the French artist Édouard Pignon, one of his best friends. Hélène Parmelin was the wife of É. Pignon.
  3. ^ Le Comité de la Société du Salon d'Automne to ORAZI, on 16 April 1952 (document from the Artist's archives).
  4. ^ The pictures of these paintings are on line: Home Page
  5. ^ These paintings have also been reproduced by the Russian journal 'Europa': Еврора - ВСЯ (Культ), Девушки и Элефанты. Круговорот Прекрасного В Ррироде. Фрагменты Издания Калелдаря Пирелли, Россия, February - March 2009, n.2, pp. 136-140 (by N. Werner, N. Huneke).
  6. ^ Among those artists, several had his same first name: Horace, Orazio, or Horatio. Bénézit, Emmanuel, Dictionnaire critique et documentaire des Peintres, Sculpteurs, Dessinateurs et Graveurs, Nouvelle édition, T. VIII, p. 27, Paris, Librairie Gründ, 1976; Benezit Dictionary of Artists in Oxford Art Online www.oxfordartonline.com/public/book/oao_benz.
  7. ^ 'Paris-Soir', sect. Dans les Galeries, L'exposition d'ORAZI, 10 Dec. 1937, Paris.
  8. ^ Premier Salon des Jeunes Artistes (Palais des Beaux-Arts), Febr-March 1937, Paris; Deuxième Salon des Jeunes Artistes (214, Faubourg Saint Honoré), 20 June-5 July 1938, exhibition invitation, p. 2, Paris.
  9. ^ Other paintings from 1936, 1937, and 1941 were commissioned and purchased by the Milanese art foundations 'Ospedale Maggiore' and 'Trivulzio' (bibliography: Quadreria Ospedale Maggiore Cà Granda, Ritratti Antichi, Mondadori Electa, Milan, 1986, catalogue n. 664, pl. 735, p. 75; Biscottini, Paolo, (Ed.), 200 anni di solidarietà milanese nei 100 quadri restaurati da Trivulzio, Martinitt e Stelline, Federico Motta Editore, Milan, 1990, p. 71.
  10. ^ Bony, Anne Les Années 40, Éditions du Regard, Paris, 1985, p. 108: it is on line at catalog.lib.kyushu-u.ac.jp/ja/recordID/1000935969; Negri Arnoldi, Francesco, Note on the Artist, on line publication at www.painter-in-paris.com; Edizioni della Faretra, ORAZI (monograph; 30 plates in colour), Novare, 1946.
  11. ^ Jean-Pierre (Pietri), ORAZI et la Peinture du Mouvement,'Les Lettres Françaises', Année 14, n. 518, p. 9, 26 May-3 June 1954, Paris.
  12. ^ Marcenac, Jean, La critique du Salon d'Automne, Salle 36 - Première des trois salles du Nouveau Réalisme, 'Les Lettres Françaises', 30 Oct.-6 Nov. 1952, Paris; Besson, George, Le Salon d'Automne, 'Ce Soir', 4 Nov. 1952, p.8, Paris; 'Le Patriote du Sud-Ouest', Triomphe du Réalisme au Salon d'Automne, 11 Nov. 1952, p.10, Toulouse.
  13. ^ 'Tous Les Arts, Hebdomadaire d'Information Artistique' (a weekly art journal directed by L. Aragon and inserted in 'Les lettres Françaises'), Le Salon de Mai (8th Salon de Mai: painting reproduced ORAZI – L'écuyère), May–June 1952, Paris; Rollin, Jean, Les chef-d'œuvre du 8e Salon de Mai (ORAZI: personnages de cirque autour d'une écuyère), 'La Marseillaise', 17 May 1952, Châteauroux; Sibert, Jean, 430 toiles d'un peu partout s'exposent au soleil de Menton (Deuxième Biennale de Menton), 'Arts', n. 422, 31 July - 6 August 1953, p. 7, Paris (painting reproduced: ORAZI – Clown); Jean-Pierre (Pietri), ORAZI et la Peinture du Mouvement (on the exhibition at the gallery Marcel Bernheim; the paintings mentioned are: L'Ecuyère, La Famille du Clown, L'Homme à l'Haltère, La Danseuse), 'Les Lettres Françaises', Année 14, n. 518, p.9, 26 May-3 June 1954, Paris; 'Journal de l'Amateur d'Art', Les Expositions - ORAZI (Galerie Marcel Bernheim), 10 juin 1954, Paris. Bernard Collet, Étude d'un tableau d'ORAZI de 1953: « Le Clown », May 2016 (article written on the painting exhibited at the Deuxième Biennale de Menton of 1953)
  14. '^ XIème Salon de Mai (Catalogue: ORAZI, Bataille), 1955, Paris; XIIe Salon de Mai (Catalogue: ORAZI, Etude de Mouvement), 1956, Paris; Besson, George Le Salon de Nulle Part (ORAZI: photo Bataille), 'Les Lettres Françaises', 10–16 May 1956, Paris; Boudaille, Georges, ORAZI - Mouvements (Bataille), 'Les Lettres Françaises', 6–12 June 1957, Paris.L'Annunciata', Galleria d'Arte in Milano, ORAZI, N. S. 43, 21 Feb.-12 March 1959, Milan.
  15. ^ 'Les Lettres Françaises', Histoire du Soldat qui ramena un canon chez lui. Un conte d'Italo Calvino illustré par ORAZI (translated by Geneviève Gaubert), 5 Aug. 1954, Paris. In the Artist's archives there is the letter sent by the editorial staff of 'Les Lettres Françaises' (at that time directed by Louis Aragon), dated Paris, 24 July 1954 (from Y. BENOT to ORAZI).
  16. ^ XVIe Salon de Mai, Musée de l'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, 8–29 May 1960, Catalogue n. 139 – Peinture; XVIIe Salon de Mai, 6–28 May 1961, Catalogue n. 131 – Nocturne
  17. ^ 'Galerie 7', rue Miromesnil, Paris, ORAZI. Peintures Récentes, 21 April-12 May 1961, text of the exhibition brochure by Michel Courtois.
  18. ^ Chevalier, Denys, ORAZI -Galerie 7, 'Aujoud'hui Art et Architecture', sect. Les Expositions, May 1961; 'Les Lettres Françaises', sect. Arts – Peinture Fraiche (by M.-T. Maugis), ORAZI - Galerie 7 (a painting by ORAZI is reproduced on p. 11), 3 May 1961, Paris; 'France- Observateur', ORAZI (Galerie 7), 4 May 1961, Paris.
  19. ^ 'New York Herald Tribune', sect. Les Arts, ORAZI (Galerie 7), 26 April 1961, Paris (French Edition).
  20. ^ Lévèque, Jean, La passion pour arme: ORAZI - Un spectacle brutal de la nature, in 'La Galerie des Arts', May 1966, p.8.
  21. ^ Lévèque, Jean-Jacques, 'Arts', sect. Les Expositions, 23 March-29 March, ORAZI.Un spectacle brutal de la nature (from the name of ORAZI's painting reproduced by the journal 'Arts') - Galerie du Passeur, 1966, Paris.
  22. ^ XVIIIème Salon de Mai, ORAZI - Été, Musée de l'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, 6–27 May 1962, Catalogue p. 20. Salon de Mai au Japon, September 1962:Organisé par 'The Mainichi Newspapers' (sous les auspices de l'Association Française d'Action Artistique, de l'Ambassade de France au Japon, et du Ministère Japonais des Affaires Etrangères), Catalogue, ORAZI - Été, n. 54.
  23. ^ Boudaille, Georges, Jeune, encore jeune, toujours jeune le Salon de Mai – ORAZI. Le Mur Halluciné, 'Les Lettres Françaises', 13–19 May 1965, Paris; Lévèque, Jean-Jacques, La passion pour arme: ORAZI, 'La Galerie des Arts', May 1966, Paris.
  24. ^ Moulin, Raoul-Jean, Inauguration à Skopye. Le Musée d'Art Contemporain, un témoignage de la solidarité internationale, 'Les Lettres Françaises', sect. Les Arts, n.1362, 2–8 December 1970, pp. 25-26, Paris
  25. ^ 'Galerie du Passeur', 90 rue du Bac, Paris, ORAZI. Peintures en Relief, 15 March-15 April 1966. XXVIIème Salon de Mai, Salles New York, Paris, 29 April-17 May, ORAZI, Alpha-Oméga, Catalogue, p. 23.
  26. ^ Moulin, Raoul-Jean (photograph: Muller) ORAZI – Galerie du Passeur, 'Les Lettres Françaises', sect. Les Arts, 10–16 March 1966, p. 32, Paris; Boudaille, Georges, 'Les Lettres Françaises', sect. Les Arts, 17 March 1966 (week of March 17–23). Negri Arnoldi, Francesco, Note on the Artist , at www.painter-in-Paris.com (on line text).
  27. ^ Christian Bourgois Éditeur, Paris, 1974, pp. 140.
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