The Still-Life That Set Giorgio Morandi's Auction Record

Giorgio Morandi's Natura Morta (1940) sold for $4.33m at Christie's in New York on May 8, 2018. The oil on canvas laid down on masonite work had been traded once in the past, purchased by Peggy and David Rockefeller in 1961.

Morandi's rare oval-shaped canvas is one of just two the Italian artist made. Its sale in 2018 was the second time the artist's auction record had been broken in three years.

It was painted the year Mussolini took Italy into the Second World War, which Morandi largely spent in the countryside near Bologna, which was heavily bombed by the Allies.

Before the war, Morandi's reputation for poetic still-lifes had been established in Italy, despite hostile reviews by critics keen on fascist neo-classicism. The artist's admiration of Paul Cezanne, who was deemed a foreign artist, also went against.

In 1948, Morandi represented Italy at the Venice Biennale, and in 1957 he won the Grand Prize for painting at the São Paulo Biennale. International success meant he could give up his teaching job at Bologna’s Academy of Fine Arts and focus exclusively on painting still-lifes and landscapes until his death in 1964.

The sale beat the artist’s previous auction record by $393,100, a 9% rise. His previous record was set by Natura Morta (1939), which sold for $3.94m at Christie's on October 16, 2015. The work had been traded 5 times in the past.

A Brief History of Morandi at Auction