Nature morte

This work belongs to a group of paintings of 1916, marking Severini's the return to Cubism after his great Futurist period. This return to Cubism coincides with his definitive settling down in Paris, and a new creative season which culminated in the important New York exhibition of 1916, at the Photo Secession Gallery directed by Alfred Stieglitz. The work is conceived and created around the compositional logic of "papier collés", as one can appreciate from Severini's focus on the decorative element of the fake cuts of the wall-paper and the checkered table-cloth. In line with the Cubist logic, these collages are shifted and presented in various points of the painting. A total abolition of any element referring to spacial depth derives from this pagination. Any sense of perspective is substituted by elegant graphic solutions.
This work, lost for many decades, was part of a group of canvases sent from Paris to Rome in 1920 to the gallerist Giuseppe Sprovieri, who was charged with their sale.

Daniela Fonti