Still Life (1956) by Iberê CamargoIberê Camargo Foundation
“By around 1956 or ’57, Iberê Camargo already had a reputation as a printmaker,” says Maria Alice Milliet of the Brazilian painter. “It was at that moment, in four still-lifes, that he submitted a few objects and pieces of fruit to extraordinary geometrization. These etchings, together with their respective working proofs, form a group which suggests proximities with the still-lifes of Giorgio Morandi, as Iberê had been familiar with the work of the great Italian artist since 1948.”
“Iberê created a succession of prints and paintings in dialogue with Morandi’s work, in which everyday objects are presented with such solemnity that they seem more like objects from some secular liturgy. The emotive density emanating from these arrangements puts them in the same lineage as Morandi’s simple yet enigmatic natura in posa.”
Of the younger painter’s relationship to Morandi’s work, Milliet points out that “The important thing to note is that Iberê’s proximity to the aesthetics of Morandi in his still-life phase reveals the most characteristic element of his work: the dialectic between the sensory and the intellectual.”
Paolo Gomes described this particular example: “Synthetic, hieratic forms are carefully arranged on a base (a table perhaps) with a screen backdrop completed by a broad, lighter square.”
“The reduced palette unfolds into sombre tones of grey, blue and brown, all very composed and well orchestrated.”
“It is a painting in which the formal rigour of the composition goes hand-in-hand with pictorial simplification.”
