Clockwise: Madonna, Betty Jane Rosella and Rosella.Clockwise: Madonna, Betty Jane Rosella and Rosella.

Seeing is influenced by the knowledge one has acquired, thus impacting our personal interpretation of things. When looking at a portrait, there are two elements to take into account: first that this is the visual representation of somebody and, second, that this is a reflection and a record of how the sitter was once seen by those around them. An artist is largely responsible for this interpretation, principally the latter. Artists can break barriers that are created between individuals from different societal ranks.

Several portraits by Pietro Annigoni (1910-1988) were exhibi­ted in a recent exhibition of prints held in Gozo. Annigoni was an Ita­lian artist of great renown. He was born in Milan but lived most of his life in Florence. He acquired great fame as a portraitist, but he was also an able author, fresco painter, sculptor, and printmaker who was successful also outside Italy. After 1949, he was affiliated with London’s Royal Academy when he exhibited a self-portrait in the annual summer exhibition. This led him to eventually be commissioned two portraits of Queen Eli­zabeth II, the memorable one being the earlier one executed in 1955, a portrait that acquired him international success.

The Gozo exhibition consisted of a total of 11 works. Most represented women, including several portrayals of his second wife and a study of the female nude. Annigoni’s smaller works are domi­nated by female portraits, and this exhibition highlighted just that. In fact, one of the last portraits he painted was of his then favourite subject, his second wife, Rossella Segreto.

The other two works in the exhibition are a sketch for the central element of the Apocalypse fresco which he produced in 1974 in the parish church of St Michael the Archangel at Ponte Buggianese (Province of Pistoia) and a bozzetto for the pala of St Joseph he produced for the Basilica di San Lorenzo in Florence in 1964.

The preponderance of the female as a subject in the exhibited prints may be a coincidence because of what was available to the organisers, but it begs to be analysed further.

In 1937, Annigoni married Anna Giuseppa Maggini (d. 1969). They had two children – Benedetto and Maria Riccarda. In 1976 he married Rosella Segreto (b.1942), a Neapolitan model, 33 years his junior, whom he met in 1966. She soon became the artist’s favourite model.

Rossella wanted to train to become an artist but, following her father’s death, her mother discouraged her from pursuing art for it was not a decorous profession for a woman. She thus started working as a fashion model, and it was during one of her work trips to the US that she met Pietro Annigoni. Rossella –  who was herself then married – found in Annigoni the person who would reignite her love for painting.

Annigoni was known to be a cynical and pessimistic man and his portraits encompass all that is said

After becoming romantically involved, Rossella would assist Annigoni in his studio, and during the execution of his large fresco cycles, and she eventually took to painting herself once again, albeit focusing her energy primarily on Annigoni’s artistic endeavours.

Rossella observed his work and learned from his methods, and Annigoni himself had stated that her honesty and spontaneity made him a different person. There was a mutual exchange between the two.

Rossella’s admiration for Annigoni has not wained and, in 1996 she founded the Associazione Amici di Pietro Annigoni to promote solidarity among people, of which she is still president. One can visit the Museo Pietro Annigoni in Florence, which was inaugurated in 2008.

Annigoni was known to be a cynical and pessimistic man and his portraits encompass all that is said. The artist depicted young and attractive women through a melancholic lens. He portrayed nostalgia which is sinking into the realm of a lost world.

Consequently, the only element that separates his Madonna from the portrait of Rosella is the head crown; other than that the Madonna in this exhibition is as human as Rosella is sacred. His work is embedded in truth and the artist does not create a hierarchy in any of his works.

Annigoni was a modern realist painter and, in 1947, he signed the manifesto of the Modern Realist Painters, penned together with seven other painters in order to defend their academic artistic expression.

It is interesting to observe how Annigoni’s execution changed from one that is realist in his larger pieces, being so true to nature, to one that is much freer, less academic and conventional.

The exhibited works possessed an unfinished quality, yet the female portrayals are endowed with detailed faces. The portraits are all set out in a similar manner. They are positioned on the upper right corner as they look down towards the left-hand side. The sitters never make eye contact with the viewer, creating distance between the subject and the observer.

Apart from the three prints portraying Rossella in this exhibition, Annigoni’s oeuvre consists of many more likenesses of his second wife. One can go on to say that Rossella was Annigoni’s muse because Rosella’s role in Annigoni’s artistic career went further than simply being his favourite model. To investigate how this relationship impacted on Annigoni’s art, an exhibition titled Annigoni – Segreto: momenti d’arte e vita privata di Pietro Annigoni was held in 2010 at Villa Bardini in Florence.

The muse can be a lover or even a wife, one whom the artist explores from every imaginable facet. And there is a difference between being an artist’s subject and being an artist’s muse.

The artist-muse relationship is a complex one. It is often also a private one, that is, until the artist chooses to portray his muse in works that were intended to be or have become public.

It is a shame that the Gozo exhibition was not sufficiently promoted or presented in an adequate manner. The literature relating to the exhibition consisted solely of the artist’s biography that was taken ad verbatim from an internet source.

Although there is no doubt that the information is correct, some effort could have been made to re-write this into an essay, including the raison d’etre for the exhibition. The biography should, for example, have made reference to Annigoni’s iconic frescoes in the post-1944 basilica of the Benedictine Abbey of Monte Cassino (south of Rome), even though none of the exhibits were related to the Monte Cassino series.

The prints were viewable through glass display cabinets, which is understandable since all of the works were not framed. However, the reflection on the glass and the horizontal display made it difficult to view the works properly.

Moreover, the exhibition times as advertised for the four days it was open at the Ministry for Gozo were not adhered to. Gozo has, of late, been holding several exhibitions that are worthy of note. But an exhibition such as this, that was organised as part of the 11th edition of Gaulitana: A festival of Music, should have been better curated.

The artist and his muse is a relationship that is being researched and explored by Abigail Pace for her MA dissertation in History of Art under the supervision of Charlene Vella.

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