Still Life with Compotier
Gino Severini
European Art
Today when we think of where inventive contemporary design
is manufactured, we often think of Italy. This, however, was not
always the case. Wide acceptance of modern design came
somewhat later in Italy than elsewhere, perhaps because of the
ever-present conservative influence of the palpable Roman classical past and the slow development of the Italian economy
in the twentieth century. To be sure, before World War II there
were important modern designers in Italy, foremost Gio Ponti,
an architect from Milan whose influence spread beyond his
native country through two architecture and design magazines he
founded, Domus and Stile. And the Fascist regime of Mussolini in
the pre-World War II period did embrace modern architecture,
unlike the Nazi regime in Germany, which consciously rejected
modernism as a source of foreign, moral corruption. It was not,
however, until the post-World War II era, when the Italian economy
expanded rapidly, that Italian modern design achieved international recognition.
One pivotal event made consumers in the United States aware
of the diversity and accomplishments of modern Italian design—the exhibition Italy at Work, which travelled to twelve venues
between 1950 and 1954. The exhibition was initiated by the Art
Institute of Chicago in partnership with two organizations devoted to the promulgation of Italian design, Handicraft Development
Incorporated in the United States and its corresponding institution
in Italy, CADMA. Italy at Work included hundreds of objects by
more than 150 artisans and manufacturers and featured furniture,
ceramics, glass, textiles, metalwork, jewelry, shoes, knit clothing,
and industrial design. The exhibition opened at the Brooklyn
Museum, and at its conclusion, when the objects were dispersed
among the host institutions, the lion’s share, more than two hundred items, came to the Museum.
In the second half of the twentieth century, Italy became a
center for modern design. Many foreigners went there to study
and work at small, adventurous firms that produced high-quality objects.
MEDIUM
Glazed earthenware, cement, original integral black painted wood frame
DATES
ca. 1949
INSCRIPTIONS
Inscribed lower left in tesserae: "JOURNAL"
ACCESSION NUMBER
54.65.1
CREDIT LINE
Gift of the Italian Government
MUSEUM LOCATION
This item is not on view
CAPTION
Gino Severini (Italian, 1883–1966). Still Life with Compotier, ca. 1949. Glazed earthenware, cement, original integral black painted wood frame, 32 3/4 x 27in. (83.2 x 68.6cm). Brooklyn Museum, Gift of the Italian Government, 54.65.1. © artist or artist's estate (Photo: Brooklyn Museum, 54.65.1_PS2.jpg)
IMAGE
overall, 54.65.1_PS2.jpg. Brooklyn Museum photograph, 2007
"CUR" at the beginning of an image file name means that the image was created by a curatorial staff member. These study images may be digital point-and-shoot photographs, when we don\'t yet have high-quality studio photography, or they may be scans of older negatives, slides, or photographic prints, providing historical documentation of the object.
RIGHTS STATEMENT
© artist or artist's estate
Copyright for this work may be controlled by the artist, the artist's estate, or other rights holders. A more detailed analysis of its rights history may, however, place it in the public domain.
The Museum does not warrant that the use of this work will not infringe on the rights of third parties. It is your responsibility to determine and satisfy copyright or other use restrictions before copying, transmitting, or making other use of protected items beyond that allowed by "fair use," as such term is understood under the United States Copyright Act.
For further information about copyright, we recommend resources at the
United States Library of Congress,
Cornell University,
Copyright and Cultural Institutions: Guidelines for U.S. Libraries, Archives, and Museums, and
Copyright Watch.
For more information about the Museum's rights project, including how rights types are assigned, please see our
blog posts on copyright.
If you have any information regarding this work and rights to it, please contact
copyright@brooklynmuseum.org.
RECORD COMPLETENESS
Not every record you will find here is complete. More information is available for some works than for others, and some entries have been updated more recently. Records are frequently reviewed and revised, and
we welcome any additional information you might have.
This is cool!
That's such an interesting work, a Cubist still-life in mosaic! Can you see the glass (maybe a glass of absinthe?) and the newspaper (JOURNAL) on the cafe table?
