Francesco Clemente: Alba
The gallery is proud to present the third solo show in Spain by Francesco Clemente (b. Naples, 1952): a very personal project that brings together a group of forty recent works dedicated to his companion and muse, Alba. The exhibition, which pays tribute to his wife on their fortieth wedding anniversary, consists of three separate series: eight pastels on paper, twelve small-scale oils on canvas, and twenty ink drawings on paper. The different groups of portraits show separate aspects of the same person, reflecting the artist鈥檚 belief that being is fragmented and in constant change. They are inspired more by reverie and intuitive feeling than by actual appearances, as they are painted from memory.
When Francesco Clemente met Alba Primiceri in the mid-seventies, after returning from his first visit to India, they were both living in Rome, where he had made his first forays as a painter and she was well known as an actress in avant-garde theatre. They have spent long periods together in Chennai (formerly Madras), where he set up a studio, and since then he has worked there in collaboration with local artisans. He continued with his declared aim of reconciling European cultural tradition with eastern spiritual vision when he and his family relocated to New York in 1981.
In the cultural context of New York in the mid-eighties and early nineties, Clemente came into contact with writers and visual artists who enriched his creative perspectives, and these friendships are directly echoed in his subsequent work. For some of these artists, Alba became an icon of beauty and mystery, ambiguity and sophistication, as seen in the photography of Robert Mapplethorpe, Andy Warhol, David Seidner, and Bruce Weber, and in the painting of Jean-Michel Basquiat, Julian Schnabel, and Kenny Scharf. Alex Katz has also painted his friend鈥檚 wife on several occasions, fascinated above all by her style and the elegance of her gestures.
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The gallery is proud to present the third solo show in Spain by Francesco Clemente (b. Naples, 1952): a very personal project that brings together a group of forty recent works dedicated to his companion and muse, Alba. The exhibition, which pays tribute to his wife on their fortieth wedding anniversary, consists of three separate series: eight pastels on paper, twelve small-scale oils on canvas, and twenty ink drawings on paper. The different groups of portraits show separate aspects of the same person, reflecting the artist鈥檚 belief that being is fragmented and in constant change. They are inspired more by reverie and intuitive feeling than by actual appearances, as they are painted from memory.
When Francesco Clemente met Alba Primiceri in the mid-seventies, after returning from his first visit to India, they were both living in Rome, where he had made his first forays as a painter and she was well known as an actress in avant-garde theatre. They have spent long periods together in Chennai (formerly Madras), where he set up a studio, and since then he has worked there in collaboration with local artisans. He continued with his declared aim of reconciling European cultural tradition with eastern spiritual vision when he and his family relocated to New York in 1981.
In the cultural context of New York in the mid-eighties and early nineties, Clemente came into contact with writers and visual artists who enriched his creative perspectives, and these friendships are directly echoed in his subsequent work. For some of these artists, Alba became an icon of beauty and mystery, ambiguity and sophistication, as seen in the photography of Robert Mapplethorpe, Andy Warhol, David Seidner, and Bruce Weber, and in the painting of Jean-Michel Basquiat, Julian Schnabel, and Kenny Scharf. Alex Katz has also painted his friend鈥檚 wife on several occasions, fascinated above all by her style and the elegance of her gestures.
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