Nude (1923)

On the reverse: inscription “Emilio Malerba May 1923”;

label of the Galleria del Milione, 1931

Exhibitions: 1931, Posthumous exhibition of Gian Emilio Malerba, Milan, Galleria del Milione

Provenance: private collection

A leading figure in the original Novecento group, Gian Emilio Malerba embodies with particular intensity the values of naturalism, formal composure and subtle wonder, elements that converge in the suspended and contemplative dimension of Magical Realism. The half-length Nude, created in 1923, is a valuable testimony to his early 1920s production, all the more significant when considered in relation to the brevity of his creative career, which was cut short by the artist’s premature death in 1926, just as the language and vision promoted by Margherita Sarfatti with the Novecento group were reaching their peak.

The work, presented in the posthumous exhibition dedicated to Malerba at the Galleria del Milione in 1931, still reveals an intense and full-bodied brushstroke; however, the delicate chiaroscuro and the dreamlike dimension of the portrait bring it closer to the artist’s most significant production in the 1920s, in which the female nude takes on the task of bringing the values of classicism and measured compositional harmony into modernity; “Nude is the style rather than the body represented,” writes Elena Pontiggia[1] about Malerba’s nudes, emphasising the purist forms and the sparse and serene balance of his settings, in which the female anatomy is one of the stylistic values most dear to the author.

Meanwhile, Margherita Sarfatti wrote in 1924: “Malerba meticulously describes form and lovingly curates the chromatic glazes in delicate and skilful tonal transitions”[2], a phrase that seems to outline the salient points of this portrait of a young girl, a modern Venus that foreshadows Achille Funi’s Venus in Love from 1928. What emerges is the subtle elegance of the lighting, the red drapery that envelops her below the bust, reminiscent of the 17th century, and the gaze that seems to communicate with the viewer. This is a curious device already used in other portraits of contemporary girls, including the Collegiale (1921). However, in the Nudo (1923), there is also a lively connection with the Art Deco style, conveyed not only by the 1920s bob, but also by the density of the volumes and, above all, by the celebration of intimate yet daring feminine beauty. This image fully corresponds to the Novecento guidelines given by the artist himself in his Taccuini (1920-1925): “Expression of inner life, not a careful copy of nature. […] A modern soul in which the ancient form can be guessed […]. Harmonious construction, linear sobriety, richness of expression”[3].

[1] E. Pontiggia, Alle origini del Novecento italiano (1919 – 1923), Il Novecento italiano, Carte d’Artisti n. 33, edited by E. Pontiggia, Milan, Abscondita, 2003, p. 164.

[2] M. Sarfatti, Mostra di “Sei pittori del ‘900”, catalogue of the XXII Venice Biennale, 1924

[3] G. E. Malerba, Taccuini (1920–1925), in Il Novecento italiano, Carte d’Artisti no. 33, edited by E. Pontiggia, Milan, Abscondita, 2003, p. 53.

Elena Lago