Pietro Annigoni (Milan 1910 Florence 1988) Mannequin in the studio Signed with the artist s monogram and dated Cttt XLVII (lower centre) Tempera on panel 19 ¼ x 25 ⅝ in. (49 x 65 cm.) Painted in 1947 Various annotations and labels on the reverse: Azeglio Maumary s loan label at the upper right corner for the 1959 exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum; Inventory label of the Ing. Maumary Collection with the title Manichino nello studio; at the centre of the autograph annotation of Annigoni "Manichino seduto / Pietro Annigoni Cttt / Piazza S. Croce 9 / Firenze"; below two annotations "Collezione Sandro Rubboli, Collezione Walter Girotti / Milano." Provenance Collection Sandro Rubboli. Collection Walter Girotti, Milan. Collection Ing. Maumary. Galleria d'arte La Barcaccia, Rome. Private Collection, Rome. Exhibitions Milan, I Pittori moderni della Realtà, Galleria del Illustrazione Italiana, 1947. New York, Pietro Annigoni, A retrospective exhibition, The Brooklyn Museum, 1969. San Francisco, Pietro Annigoni, A retrospective exhibition, California Palace of the Legion of Honour, 1969. Bibliography I Pittori moderni della Realtà, catalogo della mostra, Milano, Galleria del Illustrazione Italiana, 18/30.11.1947, s.l., s.t. Pietro Annigoni, A retrospective exhibition (New York, The Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, Apri127 - June 22, 1969; San Francisco, California, California Palace of the Legion of Honour, July 19
August 31, 1969), New York 1969, plate IL. THOS. AGNEW & SONS LTD. According to Bernard Berenson, Annigoni was not only the greatest painter of the twentieth century but his works rank with the most celebrated painters of all time. From his beginnings in Florence, to the height of his fame and fortune Annigoni pursued his own path, standing alone against the forces of modernism in art. Both in style and technique, he based himself on the masters of the Italian Renaissance, placing great stress on draughtsmanship and often working in tempera. Annigoni was a bohemian, a drinker, a fighter and a womanizer, yet the world s most powerful and celebrated people sought him out for portraits. In 1947 Annigoni, along with some other artists, signed Il manifesto dei Pittori Moderni della Realtà ( The Manifesto of Modern Painters of Reality ), which was also strongly supported by Giorgio de Chirico. Once called the painter of beautiful women, Annigoni chose instead to be the painter of beggars. The turning point in his career was a commission from the Worshipful Company of Fishmongers to paint a portrait of Queen Elizabeth II (1954-5, Fishmongers Hall, London); it was endlessly reproduced, including on postage stamps and banknotes in various countries, and it was rashly claimed that it made him the most famous artist in the world not excluding even Picasso. Amongst his celebrity sitters were several other members of the British royal family, Presidents Kennedy and Johnson, and Pope John XXIII, and the artist subsequently had many exhibitions in London -- at Wildenstein in 1950 and 1954 and at Agnew s in 1952 and 1956. The majority of Annigoni s paintings of mannequins seem to have all been painted in the 1940s and 1950s. The subject of the mannequin in art was recently explored in an exhibition at the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, Silent Partners: Artist & Mannequin from Function to Fetish. Its subject is how artists since the Renaissance have used mannequins or lay figures as substitutes for the living model in ways that are often playful and uncanny, and sometimes disturbing. In this painting, Annigoni s mannequin is roughly carved and faceless, like a monstrous wooden puppet, and although its arms and legs can be manipulated, its ability to mimic the movement of
the body is limited. However it has transgressed from being a mere studio tool, a piece of equipment as necessary as easel, pigments and brushes, to sitting centre stage, slumped on the bed, as if it has Pygmalion-like come to life and exhausted itself in the process. In her essay on the Annigonian mannequins, Anita Valentini recalls how this genre of painting arose around 1914 from the relationship between De Chirico's painting such as the works The Seer (fig. 1) or Hector and Andromache (fig. 2) and Apollinaire s lyrical vision in the creation of the image of a faceless man that looks back to what would have been called "metaphysical art" (Valentini, 2006). But, unlike the symbolic locations in De Chirico and Carrà s works, his mannequins live in everyday environments, interiors of studies and attics. As recorded in an 1972 interview with Annigoni (Valentini, 2006, see p. 62), Valentini puts this mode of expression in a surrealist context. In the 1950s, Annigoni painted Masterpieces such as The Attic of the bullfighter (fig. 3 ) and Would you say that this is man? (fig. 4). In the early 1970s the subject of the mannequin continues to inspire Annigoni s works such as Paralyzed force (fig. 5), Contemplation of the void, Once upon a time Palladio (fig. 6), each of which contains different meanings and nuances, but always refering to the fundamental doubts and questions of human existence. In these works, the dummy is the instrument of wandering thought. With Solitude III (fig. 7), a grandiose and monumental painting of 2 x 3 meters (1973), Annigoni finally takes us back to the domestic setting of a corner of his studio, in which grazing light illuminates two mannequins lying on top of each other on the wooden floor, while in the dark background disturbing figures seem to flicker around.
Fig. 1: Giorgio de Chirico, The Seer, 1914 15, oil on canvas, Museum of Modern Art, New York. Fig. 2: Giorgio de Chirico, Hector and Andromache, 1917, Galleria Nazionale d'arte Moderna, Rom.
Fig. 3: Pietro Annigoni, The Attic of the bullfighter, Museo Annigoni, Florence. Fig. 4: Pietro Annigoni, Would you say that this is man?, Private collection.
Fig. 5: Pietro Annigoni, Paralyzed force, Private Collection. Fig. 6: Pietro Annigoni, Once upon a time Palladio, Private Collection.
Fig. 7: Pietro Annigoni, Solitude III, Museo Annigoni, Florence.