A classic is a book that has never finished saying what it has to say. —Italo Calvino
David Zwirner is pleased to present Albers and Morandi: Never Finished, curated by gallery Partner David Leiber. On view at the gallery’s 537 West 20th Street location, the exhibition explores the formal and visual affinities and contrasts between two of the twentieth century’s greatest painters: Josef Albers (1888–1976) and Giorgio Morandi (1890–1964).
Both Albers and Morandi are best known for their decades-long elaborations of singular motifs: from 1950 until his death in 1976, Albers employed his nested square format to experiment with endless chromatic combinations and perceptual effects, while Morandi, in his intimate still lifes and occasional landscapes, engaged viewers’ perceptual understanding and memory of everyday objects and spaces.
Image: Giorgio Morandi, Natura morta (Still Life), 1953 (detail)
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Giorgio Morandi, Natura morta (Still Life), 1955 (detail)
Giorgio Morandi, Natura morta (Still Life), 1955 (detail)
Giorgio Morandi, Natura morta (Still Life), c. 1954 (detail)
Giorgio Morandi, Natura morta (Still Life), c. 1954 (detail)
Josef Albers, 1976. Courtesy The Josef and Anni Albers Foundation
Josef Albers, 1976. Courtesy The Josef and Anni Albers Foundation
Giorgio Morandi, 1953. Photo by Herbert List
Giorgio Morandi, 1953. Photo by Herbert List
Installation view, Albers and Morandi: Never Finished, David Zwirner, New York, 2021
Installation view, Albers and Morandi: Never Finished, David Zwirner, New York, 2021
Installation view, Albers and Morandi: Never Finished, David Zwirner, New York, 2021
Installation view, Albers and Morandi: Never Finished, David Zwirner, New York, 2021
Josef Albers
Study for Homage to the Square, 1973
Oil on Masonite
16 x 16 inches (40.6 x 40.6 cm)
16 3/4 x 16 3/4 x 1 3/8 inches (42.5 x 42.5 x 3.5 cm)
“Painting is color acting.… Acting color loses identity, appears as another color, lighter or dark, more or less intensive, brighter or duller, warmer or cooler … higher and nearer or deeper and farther away.”
—Josef Albers, studio note, 1950s
Josef Albers
Study for Homage to the Square, 1973
Oil on Masonite
16 x 16 inches (40.6 x 40.6 cm)
16 3/4 x 16 3/4 x 1 3/8 inches (42.5 x 42.5 x 3.5 cm)
“Painting is color acting.… Acting color loses identity, appears as another color, lighter or dark, more or less intensive, brighter or duller, warmer or cooler … higher and nearer or deeper and farther away.”
—Josef Albers, studio note, 1950s
Sanford Roth, Giorgio Morandi, c. 1946–62, scan from a 35mm negative. Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Beulah Roth Bequest. © Museum Associates/LACMA
Sanford Roth, Giorgio Morandi, c. 1946–62, scan from a 35mm negative. Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Beulah Roth Bequest. © Museum Associates/LACMA
Giorgio Morandi
Fiori (Flowers), 1947
Oil on canvas
11 1/2 x 8 1/2 x 5/8 inches (29.3 x 21.6 x 1.6 cm)
Framed: 15 1/4 x 12 1/4 x 1 3/4 inches (38.7 x 31.1 x 4.4 cm)
“One can travel the world and see nothing. To achieve understanding it is necessary not to see many things, but to look hard at what you do see.”
—Giorgio Morandi, quoted in Michael Kimmelman, “Looking Long and Hard at Morandi,” The New York Times, 2004
Giorgio Morandi
Fiori (Flowers), 1947
Oil on canvas
11 1/2 x 8 1/2 x 5/8 inches (29.3 x 21.6 x 1.6 cm)
Framed: 15 1/4 x 12 1/4 x 1 3/4 inches (38.7 x 31.1 x 4.4 cm)
“One can travel the world and see nothing. To achieve understanding it is necessary not to see many things, but to look hard at what you do see.”
—Giorgio Morandi, quoted in Michael Kimmelman, “Looking Long and Hard at Morandi,” The New York Times, 2004
Installation view, Albers and Morandi: Never Finished, David Zwirner, New York, 2021
Installation view, Albers and Morandi: Never Finished, David Zwirner, New York, 2021
Installation view, Albers and Morandi: Never Finished, David Zwirner, New York, 2021
Installation view, Albers and Morandi: Never Finished, David Zwirner, New York, 2021
Giorgio Morandi's Studio, Grizzana. Bologna, 2017. Photo by Francois Halard. © Francois Halard
Giorgio Morandi's Studio, Grizzana. Bologna, 2017. Photo by Francois Halard. © Francois Halard