Giorgio Morandi

Born in Bologna in 1890, Giorgio Morandi is one of the most representative figures of 20th Century Italian art. Morandi's vocation for engraving was not something that surfaced when he reached artistic maturity. It progressed in parallel with his painting.  

The engraver grew alongside the painter, as shown by the fact that his first plates, now lost together with many of his paintings from that period, go back to the year 1911, when Morandi was just 21 years old.  “…For Morandi, an etching was not just a picture on a metal plate, half way between a hastily jotted note and a brilliant aside, and with all the appearance of having been improvised. 

For him, etchings were things that could not have been produced any other way, things that you thought about deeply, sought after and pondered. Adventure didn't come into it, nor did hoping for the best, with the help of chance and the unpredictable effects of acid […] Morandi's engravings stem from a profound meditation on his subjects, maturing in his mind long before he started etching." (Lamberto Vitali,L'opera graficadi Giorgio Morandi (Giorgio Morandi's graphic works, Einaudi, Turin 1957).