Orlando Lensi (1919-1987) - Amazzoni

Orlando Lensi (1919-1987) — Amazzoni, Oil on board, 1961

Refined oil on panel by Orlando Lensi — a painter from Empoli active in the second half of the twentieth century — dated 1961, depicting a scene of horses immersed in a visionary landscape, traversed by a warm, crepuscular light.
The work shows a free, synthetic painting that is strongly evocative: the horses are not described in a naturalistic sense, but reduced to essential, almost archaic forms, immersed in a suspended atmosphere. The construction of the landscape, the chromatic tension and the expressive use of the line recall echoes of German modernism, in particular the legacy of Ernst Ludwig Kirchner and the Die Brücke group, where the real data is transformed through color, rhythm and expressive deformation.
Alongside these Northern European influences, the work also dialogues with Italian postwar experiences, especially with research on the figure of the horse and its symbolic dimension, which finds one of its peaks in Marino Marini. As in Marini, here too the horse becomes an archetypal image, suspended between classical memory, primal strength and modern formal unease.
The palette, played on ochre, oranges, blues and browns, gives the composition an intense luminous vibration. The red sun on the horizon, the stylized mountains and the equine figures build a scene of almost mythical character, more mental than descriptive.
The thin and almost transparent laying of the oil allows the warm fiber of the panel to surface, transforming the wood from a simple support into a living expressive element, from which horses and landscape seem to emerge as archaic presences, suspended between vision, memory and symbol.

Signed and dated at the bottom right.

Dimensions: painting only 32 x 42.5 cm; with frame 58 x 68 cm. The frame should be regarded as a seller’s courtesy.

State of conservation: good, with normal signs of time compatible with the age of the work. It is advisable to study the photographs carefully, which are an integral part of the description.

Careful packing and tracked national/international shipping via courier.

Biographical notes.
Orlando Lensi was a Tuscan painter and artist active in the second half of the twentieth century, particularly connected with the Empoli art milieu and the vibrant cultural season that, in the postwar period, saw the birth of local groups, circles and exhibition initiatives in dialogue with the Florentine and Tuscan figurative tradition.
In 1957 he was among the founders of the Circolo Amatori Arti Figurative di Empoli, together with other protagonists of the city’s artistic scene. The Circle played an important role in promoting contemporary art in the territory, organizing exhibitions, meetings and cultural activities. As early as 1959 Lensi held a solo show at the Pro Loco rooms in the Palazzo Ghibellino of Empoli, confirming his incorporation into the local artistic scene.
His production lies within a solid, material figurativism, tied to the Tuscan sensitivity for drawing, composition and the expressive rendering of the figure. Alongside painting, Lensi also devoted himself to ceramics and reliefs, as evidenced by works today documented in Empolese and Sanminiatese public collections. Among these are ceramic reliefs signed, figurative works and compositions with human and narrative subjects, revealing a constant interest in formal synthesis, color and the artisanal quality of the material.
In 1978 he also realized a bas-relief for the tabernacle of the Madonna della Tosse at the Calasanzio of Empoli, a sign of the regard in which he was held as an artist capable of working for public and devotional commissions.
After his death, the city of Empoli dedicated to him a commemorative exhibition at the Palazzo Comunale, held from March 15 to 31, 1997. Some of his works are today preserved or documented in civic collections, confirming his place among the Empolese masters of the twentieth century.
A figure of solid figurative culture, Lensi represents a significant voice in postwar Tuscan painting: an author tied to the territory, but able to express, through painting and ceramics, a personal formal research based on compositional balance, chromatic intensity and attention to matter.
Orlando Lensi belongs to that generation of Tuscan twentieth-century artists who, while maintaining a link with figurative tradition, were able to engage with the more modern demands of European painting. In this 1961 work, figurativism moves away from simple natural landscape to take on a more symbolic and expressive value. The synthesis of forms, the strength of color and the theme of horses reveal a language updated on the research of international modernism, but reinterpreted with Italian sensibility and a personal lyrical vein.