Enrico Donati
Encyclopedia
Enrico Donati was an American Surrealist painter and sculptor of Italian
birth.
, and in 1934 moved to the USA, where he attended the New School for Social Research and the Art Students League of New York
. His first one-man shows were in New York in 1942, at the New School for Social Research and the Passedoit Gallery. At this stage he was clearly drawn to Surrealism
. This was reinforced by meeting André Breton
and coming into contact with Marcel Duchamp
and the other European Surrealists in New York at the time. A typical work of this period, St Elmo’s Fire (1944; New York, MoMA
), contains strange organic formations suggestive of underwater life.
Donati was one of the organizers of the Exposition Internationale du Surréalisme held in Paris
in the summer of 1947, to which he contributed a painting and two sculptures. In the late 1940s he responded to the crisis in Surrealism
by going through a Constructivist
phase, from which he developed a calligraphic
style and drew onto melted tar, or diluted paint
with turpentine
. He also became associated with Spatialism
, founded by Lucio Fontana
. Thus began his long fascination with surface and texture, including mixing paint with dust, that culminated in the 1950s in his Moonscapes, a series that has similarities with the work of Dubuffet
. The fossil became a major theme for Donati through the 1960s, and he gave new importance to color in his Fossil works, for example in Red Yellow Fossil (1964; Miami, Hills Col., see Selz, p. 19). In 1961, he was given a major retrospective at the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels and frequently exhibited at group shows in the USA and elsewhere. He held a number of important teaching and advisory posts, including Visiting Lecturer at Yale University
(1962–1972).
on April 25, 2008, aged 99. Donati's health had been failing since involved, as a passenger, in a taxi accident in July, 2007. He eventually succumbed to complications sustained from his injuries.
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
birth.
Life and work
Enrico Donati studied economics at the Università degli Studi, PaviaPavia
Pavia , the ancient Ticinum, is a town and comune of south-western Lombardy, northern Italy, 35 km south of Milan on the lower Ticino river near its confluence with the Po. It is the capital of the province of Pavia. It has a population of c. 71,000...
, and in 1934 moved to the USA, where he attended the New School for Social Research and the Art Students League of New York
Art Students League of New York
The Art Students League of New York is an art school located on West 57th Street in New York City. The League has historically been known for its broad appeal to both amateurs and professional artists, and has maintained for over 130 years a tradition of offering reasonably priced classes on a...
. His first one-man shows were in New York in 1942, at the New School for Social Research and the Passedoit Gallery. At this stage he was clearly drawn to Surrealism
Surrealism
Surrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s, and is best known for the visual artworks and writings of the group members....
. This was reinforced by meeting André Breton
André Breton
André Breton was a French writer and poet. He is known best as the founder of Surrealism. His writings include the first Surrealist Manifesto of 1924, in which he defined surrealism as "pure psychic automatism"....
and coming into contact with Marcel Duchamp
Marcel Duchamp
Marcel Duchamp was a French artist whose work is most often associated with the Dadaist and Surrealist movements. Considered by some to be one of the most important artists of the 20th century, Duchamp's output influenced the development of post-World War I Western art...
and the other European Surrealists in New York at the time. A typical work of this period, St Elmo’s Fire (1944; New York, MoMA
Moma
Moma may refer to:* Moma , an owlet moth genus* Moma Airport, a Russian public airport* Moma District, Nampula, Mozambique* Moma River, a right tributary of the Indigirka River* Google Moma, the Google corporate intranet...
), contains strange organic formations suggestive of underwater life.
Donati was one of the organizers of the Exposition Internationale du Surréalisme held in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
in the summer of 1947, to which he contributed a painting and two sculptures. In the late 1940s he responded to the crisis in Surrealism
Surrealism
Surrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s, and is best known for the visual artworks and writings of the group members....
by going through a Constructivist
Constructivism (art)
Constructivism was an artistic and architectural philosophy that originated in Russia beginning in 1919, which was a rejection of the idea of autonomous art. The movement was in favour of art as a practice for social purposes. Constructivism had a great effect on modern art movements of the 20th...
phase, from which he developed a calligraphic
Calligraphy
Calligraphy is a type of visual art. It is often called the art of fancy lettering . A contemporary definition of calligraphic practice is "the art of giving form to signs in an expressive, harmonious and skillful manner"...
style and drew onto melted tar, or diluted paint
Paint
Paint is any liquid, liquefiable, or mastic composition which after application to a substrate in a thin layer is converted to an opaque solid film. One may also consider the digital mimicry thereof...
with turpentine
Turpentine
Turpentine is a fluid obtained by the distillation of resin obtained from trees, mainly pine trees. It is composed of terpenes, mainly the monoterpenes alpha-pinene and beta-pinene...
. He also became associated with Spatialism
Spatialism
Spatialism is an art movement founded by Italian artist Lucio Fontana in Milan in 1947 in which he grandiosely intended to synthesize colour, sound, space, movement, and time into a new type of art. The main ideas of the movement were anticipated in his Manifesto blanco published in Buenos Aires...
, founded by Lucio Fontana
Lucio Fontana
Lucio Fontana was an Italian painter, sculptor and theorist of Argentine birth. He was mostly known as the founder of Spatialism and his ties to Arte Povera.-Early life:...
. Thus began his long fascination with surface and texture, including mixing paint with dust, that culminated in the 1950s in his Moonscapes, a series that has similarities with the work of Dubuffet
Jean Dubuffet
Jean Philippe Arthur Dubuffet was a French painter and sculptor. His idealistic approach to aesthetics embraced so called "low art" and eschewed traditional standards of beauty in favor of what he believed to be a more authentic and humanistic approach to image-making.-Life and work:Dubuffet was...
. The fossil became a major theme for Donati through the 1960s, and he gave new importance to color in his Fossil works, for example in Red Yellow Fossil (1964; Miami, Hills Col., see Selz, p. 19). In 1961, he was given a major retrospective at the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels and frequently exhibited at group shows in the USA and elsewhere. He held a number of important teaching and advisory posts, including Visiting Lecturer at Yale University
Yale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...
(1962–1972).
Death
Considered by some in the art world to be one of the last of the Surrealists, Enrico Donati died in his home in ManhattanManhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
on April 25, 2008, aged 99. Donati's health had been failing since involved, as a passenger, in a taxi accident in July, 2007. He eventually succumbed to complications sustained from his injuries.
Museums and collections
- The Museum of Modern Art, New York
- Guggenheim Museum, New York
- Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
- Washington University, Missouri
- Museum of Fine Art of Houston, Texas
- Boca Raton Museum of ArtBoca Raton Museum of ArtThe Boca Raton Museum of Art is located at 501 Plaza Real, Boca Raton, Florida in Mizner Park. It houses works of art by a number of the great masters.-About:...
, Florida - Musees Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, Belgium
- Museum of International Center of Aesthetic Research, Turin
- Albright-Knox Art Gallery, New York
- The Detroit Institute of Art, Michigan
- University of Michigan Art Gallery, Michigan
- Baltimore Museum of Art, Maryland·Newark Museum Association, New Jersey
- Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna, Rome
- Mitchener Foundation, Pennsylvania
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Massachusetts
- The Rockefeller Institute, New York
- Johns Hopkins Hospital, Maryland
- Yale University Art Gallery, Connecticut
- Washington Gallery of Modern Art, Washington D.C. Tougaloo College, Mississippi
- The Israel Museum, Israel
- University Art Museum, University of California, Berkeley
- University of Texas, Austin
- Museum of Fine Arts, Florida
- Tacoma Art Museum, Washington
- St. Paul Art Center, Minnesota
- The Lowe Museum, University of Miami, Florida
- High Museum of Art, Georgia
- Doane College, Nebraska
- Seattle Art Museum, Washington
- Weinstein Gallery, San Francisco, CA
- Vassar College, New York
- Swarthmore College, Pennsylvania
- Minnesota Museum of Art, Minnesota
- The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington D.C.
- Museum of Art, Florida
- Orlando Museum of Art, Florida
- Housatonic Community College, Connecticut
- Arturo Schwarz Surrealist Foundation, Italy
Selected solo exhibitions
- 2007, The Surreal World of Enrico Donati, de Young Museum, San Francisco
- 2006, Weinstein Gallery, San Francisco, California (Retrospective : 130 Selected works from the Artist's Personal Collection 1942 - 2001)
- 2004, 2005 Gallerie Les yeux fertiles, Paris
- 2000-04 Galerie Yoramgil, West Hollywood, California
- 1998 Galerie Yoramgil, West Hollywood, California(retrospective)
- 1997 Boca Raton Museum (retrospective)
- 1995-97 Maxwell Davidson Gallery, New York
- 1995-97 Horwitch Gallery, Scottsdale
- 1986, 1989, 1991, 1992, 1993 Louis Newman Galleries, Beverly Hills
- 1989 Galerie Zabriskie, Paris
- 1987 Zabriskie Gallery, New York
- 1985 Georges Fall, Paris
- 1994, 1990 Carone Gallery, Fort Lauderdale
- 1984, 1986, 1987 Gimpel & Weitzenhoffer, New York·1980 Grand Palais, FIAC, Paris
- 1980 Palm Springs Desert Museum, Palm Springs
- 1979 Osuna Gallery, Washington D.C.
- 1979 Phillips Collection, Washington D.C.
- 1950 Galleria del Milione, Milan·1950 Obelisco, Rome
- 1950 Paul Rosenberg Gallery, New York
- 1947 Galerie Drouant Gallery, Paris
- 1947, 1958 Syracuse University, New York
- 1945-47, 1949 Durand Ruel, New York
- 1944, 1959 Chicago Arts Club, Chicago
- 1944 G. Place Galery, Washington D.C.
- 1942, 1944 Passedoit Gallery, New York
- 1979 Norton Gallery, Palm Beach
- 1978 Wildenstien Art Center, Houston
- 1978 Davenport Municipal Art Gallery, Iowa
- 1978 Hunter Museum of Art, Chattanooga
- 1977 Fairweather Hardin Gallery, Chicago
- 1977 Tennessee Fine Arts Center, Nashville
- 1977 Chrysler Museum, Norfolk
- 1977, 1979, 1982 Ankrum Gallery, Los Angeles
- 1977 Minnesota Museum of Art, St. Paul
- 1965 Obelisk Gallery, Washington D.C.
- 1964 Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge
- 1964, 1966 J.L. Hudson Gallery, Detroit
- 1962, 1963, 1966, 1968, 1970, 1972, 1974, 1976, 1980, 1982 Staempfli Gallery, New York
- 1962 Neue Gallery, Munich
- 1961 Palais des Beaux-Arts, Brussels
- 1954, 1955, 1957, 1959, 1960 Betty Parsons Gallery, New York
- 1953 Naviglio, Milan
- 1952, 1953 Cavallino, Venice
- 1952 Alexander IolasAlexander IolasAlexander Iolas or Alexandre Iolas was a Greek - American gallerist and collector....
Galery, New York
Selected group exhibitions
- 2005 Centre de Cultura Contemporania de Barcelona and Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilboa, Spain
- 2005 National Academy of Design, New York, and Phoenix Art Museum, Arizona
- 2002 Kouros Gallery, New York
- 2002 Philadelphia Museum of Art, Pennsylvania
- 2001-02 Tate Gallery, London and Metropolitan Museum, New York
- 2001 Portland Art Museum, Oregon
- 2001 Cultural Center Bank of Brazil, Rio de Janeiro
- 1999-2004 Galerie Yoramgil, West Hollywood, California
- 2000 Musees de Strassbourg
- 1999 Musee National Centro de Arte Reina Solia, Madrid
- 1998 Bruce Museum, Connecticut·1997 Boca Raton Museum of Art, Florida
- 1995 Nassau County Museum of Art, New York
- 1995 Galleria d'arte Bergamo, Italy
- 1994 Hunter College Art Galleries, New York
- 1992 Isidore Ducasee Fine Arts, New York
- 1991-92 Miami International, Florida
- 1991 Musee National Centro de Arte Reina Sophia, Madrid, Spain
- 1991 Musee National d'Art Moderne, Paris, France
- 1990-91 ART/LA, Los Angeles, California
- 1990 Riva Yares Gallery, Scottsdale, Arizona·Fundacion Cultural Mapfre Vida, Madrid
- 1989-90 Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Centro Atlantico de Arte Moderno
- 1989 Schim Kunsthalle, Frankfurt, Germany
- 1989 Palazzo Reale, Milan, Italy
- 1977 Rutgers University Art Gallery, New Brunswick, New Jersey
- 1977 Nashville Museum, Tennessee
- 1976 Meredith Long Gallery, Houston, Texas
- 1976 Ankrum Gallery, Los Angeles, California
- 1970 University of Texas, Austin
- 1964 New York World Fair
- 1964 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Massachusetts
- 1964 Whitney Museum, New York
- 1963 Allentown Art Museum, James A. Michener Foundation, Pennsylvania
- 1963 Columbia Museum of Art, South Carolina
- 1963 Herron Museum of Art, Indianapolis, Indiana
- 1962 Birmingham Museum of Art, Alabama
- 1961 Decorative Arts Center, New York
- 1961 Mary Washington College, Fredericksburg, Virginia
- 1961 Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge
- 1960 Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota
- 1960 University of Colorado, Boulder
- 1960 Marton May Exhibition, St. Louis, Missouri
- 1960 Martha Jackson Gallery, New York
- 1960, 1977 Minnesota Museum of Art, St. Paul
- 1959 Michigan State University
- 1959 De Cordova & Dana Museum, Massachusetts
- 1959 American Federation of ArtsAmerican Federation of ArtsThe American Federation of Arts is an organization in the United States of museums and other entities involved in the arts. It was established in 1909 at a convention held in Washington, D. C. from May 11–13 of that year called by the National Academy of Art. The concept for the organization was...
, New York - 1959 Smithsonian InstitutionSmithsonian InstitutionThe Smithsonian Institution is an educational and research institute and associated museum complex, administered and funded by the government of the United States and by funds from its endowment, contributions, and profits from its retail operations, concessions, licensing activities, and magazines...
, Washington, D.C. - 1959 Rhode Island School of Design, Providence
- 1958 Gutai 9, Osaka, Japan
- 1958, 1962 Virginia Museum of Fine Arts
- 1958 Inter-American Paintings & Prints Biennial, Mexico City
- 1959, 1957 Indiana University, Bloomington
- 1955 Munson-Williams Proctor Institute, Utica, New York
- 1954-55, 1961 Guggenheim Museum, New York
- 1953-54 Museum of Modern Art, New York
- 1953, 1954 University of Nebraska
- 1953 Biennale, São Paulo
- 1952 Saarbrücken
- 1952 Architectural Figurativa, Milan Italy
- 1952 Galleria del Cavallino, Venice, Italy
- 1952 Artists Spaziale, Trieste
- 1952 Premio Gianni, Milan, Italy
- 1951 Third Tokyo Annual
- 1951 Ninth Street Annual, New York
- 1950, 1986 Biennale, Venice, Italy
- 1948-51, 1953, 1960, 1961 University of Illinois
- 1947 Pasedot Gallery, New York
- 1947 Toledo Museum of Art
- 1947 University of Iowa
- 1947 Exposition Surrealist, Prague
- 1946 Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo
- 1946, 1963 Herron Museum of Art, Indianapolis
- 1945-47 Bignou Gallery, New York
- 1945, 1954, 1956, 1958–59, 1961–63, 1964, 1970 Whitney Annual, New York
- 1945, 1947, 1957 Pennsylvania Art Academy
- 1945, 1947, 1956, 1960-61 Cocoran Gallery, Washington D.C.
- 1945, 1954, 1957, 1960 Chicago Art Institute
- 1945, 1947, 1950, 1951, 1952, 1954, 1958, 1961 Carnegie International
Honors
- 1954-56, 1963-64 Member of the Jury of Fullbright Scholarship Program
- 1960, 1961, 1962 Visiting Lecturer at Yale University
- 1962-72 Member of the Yale University Council for Arts and Architecture
- 1970, 1972 Chairman National Committee, University Art Museum of California, Berkeley
External links
- New York Times obituary for Donati
- Obituary in The IndependentThe IndependentThe Independent is a British national morning newspaper published in London by Independent Print Limited, owned by Alexander Lebedev since 2010. It is nicknamed the Indy, while the Sunday edition, The Independent on Sunday, is the Sindy. Launched in 1986, it is one of the youngest UK national daily...
by Marcus Williamson - Enrico Donati letters received and manuscripts, 1943-1963. Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, California. A major focus of the letters, manuscripts and ephemera that comprise this collection is the Surrealist retrospective "Le Surréalisme en 1947" curated by André Breton and Marcel Duchamp and held at the Galerie Maeght in Paris, July–August 1947.