Giorgio Morandi was an Italian painter and etcher born in 1890 in Bologna. He learned to etch at the académie des beaux-arts of Bologna and studied the works of Rembrandt. Morandi’s style was influenced by post impressionists and the first cubist painters such as Cézanne and Picasso. Morandi exhibited for the first time in 1914 with Osvaldo Licini, Mario Bacchelli, Giacomo Vespignani and Severo Pozzati at the Baglioni hotel of Bologna. From 1915 to 1929 he taught drawing in elementary schools and in 1930 became the chair of etching at the académie des beaux-art of Bologna.
The still lives of the artist are part of his most notable works. The objects are carefully arranged on a table in his studio and are generally pots or bottles that are found or bought in markets. The colors used are usually pale and the variations of tones subtle, sometimes in opposition with a stark white. Emptiness is just as important as fullness in his works and the objects depicted are superimposed in a poetic and abstract manner. Just as in the works of Rembrandt or Goya, the light employed is rather somber and Morandi had the reputation of making his own colors.
In 1948 he was awarded the first prize of painting at the Venice Biennale and in 1953 the Grand Prix of etching of the second Biennale of São Paulo. After his death in 1964, exhibitions were organized around the world, notably at the Modern Art Museum of Bologna, the Met of New York and in the White House collection in Washington, D.C.