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Oil on cardboard, on canvas; titled, signed and dated upper right: ‘Ritratto di / Alpinolo / Porcella fatto in / Roma dal pittore / Lorenzo / Viani / il MCMXIII
On the back, stamp of the Fondazione Lorenzo Viani; stamp of the Galleria Falsetti, Prato, with inventory number 5749; Label of the Comune di Bologna Galleria d’Arte Moderna / Mostra antologica di Lorenzo Viani / Museo Civico 1973-1974; Label Fondazione Viani Viareggio / Mostra antologica di / Lorenzo Viani / luglio-agosto 1978
89 x 70 cm
PROVENANCE
Galleria Falsetti, Prato;
Aldo Giannini collection, Lucca;
Private collection, Italy;
from whom acquired by the present owner in 2021.
EXHIBITED
Mostra antologica di Lorenzo Viani (1882 – 1936), 22 Dec. 1973 - 27 Jan. 1974, Bologna, 1973, n. 68;
Mostra antologica di Lorenzo Viani, Viareggio, Fondazione Lorenzo Viani, 8 Jul. - 28 Aug. 1978
The sitter of this portrait is Alpinolo Porcella (1874-1962): a writer, journalist, critic, but also an artist. Born in Genoa, he moved to Rome where he became a prominent figure in the Roman artistic and literary milieu of the 1910s and 20s, in close contact with intellectuals and artists of the time, like Giorgio de Chirico, Filippo de Pisis, Giovanni Comisso and, of course, Viani.
The wide-open eyes of the outcasts from Paris and Viareggio, typical subjects in Viani’s oeuvre, are transposed into this unique portrait of a fellow artist and intellectual: the sitter’s haunting expression becomes ‘a firm vision of common pain and common terror’ that, according to the artist’s own words, is shared by all humans.