Ennio Morlotti

Ennio Morlotti ( 1910 – 1992) was an Italian painter of the Corrente de Vita movement started in Milan as a counterpoint to nationalistic Futurism and the Novecento Italiano movements. His figures show an affinity to the geometry of Cezanne and Matisse, but later works introduce elements of abstraction... Some figurative references of landscapes and still lifes were still present, but matter and colour (often laid on canvas with a spatula) became the protagonist of his works. In 1950 and 1951, he exhibited at the Caterine Viviano Gallery in New York, starting to be known outside Italy. Besides Venturi, Morlotti’s work was praised by other leading Italian critics such as Arcangeli, Longhi, Testori and Volpe. Arcangeli in particular included Morlotti among “gli ultimi naturalisti”, the last naturalist painters, as one of the last heirs of a Lombard tradition of figuration.