‘Blue is dense with history [...], it is the colour of intelligence, of thought, of French poetry'.
- Giulia Napoleone
Richard Saltoun Gallery presents the first exhibition in Rome dedicated to Italian artist Giulia Napoleone (b. 1936) following her retrospective Realtà in Equilibrio held at Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Rome in 2018.
The exhibition includes works on paper and paintings made by the artist over a 60-year period, from the early 1960s to the present day. The works explore Napoleone's use of the colour blue, which represents for the artist not only elements of nature such as the sea or the sky, but constitutes, with its countless nuances, the abstraction of multiple thoughts.
Giulia Napoleone's work is strongly autobiographical, linked to the things that she observes on a daily basis. Her artistic practice is strongly connected to perception, which is not merely intended as a sensory act, but as a tool to strengthen the relationship we establish with the external world. Napoleone's oeuvre has been involved in the phenomenon of perception since the 1960s, expanding on the study conducted on this subject matter by Futurist artist Giacomo Balla.
Exploring a sober and methodical approach, her practice encompasses different techniques and mediums, ranging from etchings to watercolours, from paintings to drawings. In the 1950s and 1960s Napoleone focused her research on monochromatic works, moving to the use of colour, in the mid-1970s. In particular, she has always been fascinated by the colour blue, which she describes as 'versatile' for its different shades and hues. Her different bodies of work are unified by a mutating nature, revealing new personal meanings when experienced by its different ‘readers’.
Born in Pescara in 1936, Roman by adoption and now with a home studio in Viterbo, Giulia Napoleone distinguishes herself for her abstract works on paper on which she intervenes with ink, watercolour or pencil. Creating her inner landscapes or, as she calls them, 'landscapes of dots', she refers to her work as a “journey that may stop at time, but which has no destination or point of arrival. It is a journey towards”. Her artistic career began in Rome, where she moved in 1957 to study at the Academy of Fine Arts. During those years, she developed important friendships with artists and writers, including Giorgio Morandi, Marino Mazzacurati, Carlo Levi and Alberto Moravia. Morandi, in particular, advised her to focus her practice on producing works on paper. Working for most of her life in isolation, she remained faithful to this medium, perfecting it over the course of half a century and developing an unmistakable style. Similar to the work of Agnes Martin, Napoleone moved away from both the gestural vocabulary of Abstract Expressionism and the systematic repetitions of Minimalism. Her works on paper, intimate and infinitely subtle, demand careful examination of their nuanced perceptual effects.
Napoleone's work has been exhibited in major galleries and institutions, including Galleria Numero, Florence, in 1963; Galleria dell'Obelisco, Rome, in 1973; Quadriennale Nazionale d'Arte, Rome, in 1986 and 1999; Musée des Beaux-Arts de la Ville, Le Locle, Switzerland, in 1990; Palazzo Martinengo, Brescia, in 1995; Museo di Villa dei Cedri, Bellinzona, Switzerland, 2001; Gabinetto disegni e stampe degli Uffizi, Florence, 2011. In 2018 Napoleone had a major retrospective at the Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna, Rome.
