Description:

Enrico Donati
Italian American, (1909-2008)
abstract composition
embossed lithograph
Pencil signed lower right, edition 43/124.

Biography from Weinstein Gallery: Born in 1909 in Milan, Italy, Enrico Donati studied economics before turning his attention to avant-garde music and ultimately to painting, studying in Paris in the early 1930's at the Ecole de la rue de Berri. There he discovered the Surrealists and came in contact with the sacred artifacts of the Native Americans at the Musee de l'Homme. Determined to learn more about them and their ways, he traveled to the American Southwest and Canadian Northwest, living and trading with the people and learning their myths, before returning to Paris. He moved his young family to New York in 1939 to escape the growing threat of war. Donati held his first exhibition at the New School of Social Research, where André Breton, leader of the Surrealist movement, saw the work and immediately embraced it. Recognized as a new voice for Surrealism, the young artist found himself welcomed into the mélange of expatriate and American artists at the center of the New York art scene.

Donati exhibited at the Exposition Internationale du Surréalisme in 1947 at the Galerie Maeght in Paris and collaborated with his friend Marcel Duchamp on the catalogue for the exhibition, painting 99 foam breasts which were attached to the catalogue with the statement "Please touch" emblazoned on the back cover. Due to an accident in his studio involving a vacuum cleaner exploding, Donati began experimenting with fiber and created a series of paintings called the "Moonscapes," as named by Duchamp. These works evolved into the "Fossil" series. Both of these series were shown at the famous Betty Parsons Gallery throughout the 1950s and 1960s to critical acclaim at the height of the Abstract Expressionist movement.

  • Dimensions: 36 1/2"H x 32"W
  • Medium: embossed lithograph

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