Lot 188
ALBERTO MORROCCO R.S.A., R.S.W., R.P., R.G.I., L.L.D. (SCOTTISH 1917-1998) §
PICNIC ON THE BEACH
£42,700
Scottish Paintings & Sculpture
Auction: Evening Sale | Lots 103-196 | Thursday 05 December from 6pm
Description
Signed and dated '92, oil on canvas
Dimensions
61cm x 91cm (24in x 36in)
Footnote
Alberto Morrocco’s significance in 20th-century Scottish art manifests threefold: in his immediately recognisable artwork, through the influence of his long tenure as Head of Painting & Drawing at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design in Dundee and, as time has shown, as the figurehead of an artistic family, with his son and nephew going on to be successful artists in their own right. Born in Aberdeen to Italian parents, he trained at Gray’s School of Art under the tutelage of James Cowie and Robert Sivell, becoming steeped in a particular Scottish art tradition that harked back to historic approaches of the country of his parents’ birth. This Scottish-Italian fusion would continue to evolve through his art, as this rigorous training and commitment to formal qualities mingled with the inspiration of his own later travels to Italy.
Morrocco’s distinctive style is characterised by his specific recurring characters: the sleeping melon-seller, the skinny boy in the street and heavily-modelled women carrying their babies and chatting across their balconies; and his distinctive motifs: the expressive sunflowers, heavily patterned carts, juicy vibrant fruit, even the precarious knifes, included for the quality of their pleasing abstract shapes and the ‘frisson’ of tension they provide against the soft flesh of fruit. Travels to the country of his parents’ birth exposed him to these subjects which he captured in sketchbooks before adding his own ‘point-of-view’ in the studio, evolving his types: ‘it happened just by observation really, and by exaggeration and selection.’ (Keller, V., & Young, C., Alberto Morrocco, Mainstream Publishing, Edinburgh, 1993, p. 62) But the most immediate thing that Italy brought him was the bright light and hot colours of the Mediterranean; the vibrant and sizzling pinks, oranges and yellows that he contrasts against the cool but bright blues and greens. We are transported away from the muted tones of Scotland, and his earlier restrained palette, to a land and culture where the climate allows for life to be lived outside, the fruit is ripe and delicious and siestas are required to avoid the strength of the midday sun. It makes sense, then, that his paintings are so enduringly popular and why he has been described at times as a hedonistic painter, an artist concerned particularly with life’s pleasures.
