Vairo Mongatti - Coppia (2) di nature morte

Vairo Mongatti (Florence 1934) — Pair of still lifes, aquaforte on paper, signed and numbered in pencil.

Still life with flowers — edition 8/50
Still life with bottles — edition 4/50

Both signed in pencil at the bottom right
Both numbered in pencil at the bottom left

Sheet size: 50 × 40 cm each
Plate size:
– Still life with flowers: 30 × 30 cm
– Still life with bottles: 25 × 30 cm

Refined pair of original engravings by Vairo Mongatti, Florentine painter and engraver born in 1934, known for his intense activity in the field of aquaforte and for a graphic research tied to the tradition of Italian printmaking. Mongatti trained at the Academy of Fine Arts in Florence and studied under Giuseppe Viviani and Rodolfo Margheri; his oeuvre comprises mostly landscapes and still lifes, with particular attention to the carved mark and to chiaroscuro values.

The two works present subjects of great elegance in composition: a floral still life, built on an intense dark circular background, and a still life with bottles, a vase, a bowl, and table objects, characterized by a dense web of signs and a gathered, silent atmosphere.

The quality of the engraving emerges in the meticulous rendering of surfaces, in the chiaroscuro transitions, and in the richness of hatching, with a language close to the best tradition of 20th-century Italian aquaforte.

Both works are signed and numbered in pencil and belong to limited editions of only 50 copies.

The engravings are currently presented within a wooden frame, visible in the photographs.
Frames to be considered a courtesy from the seller.

Good overall condition, with slight signs of time, small traces and normal yellowing of the paper visible in the photographs.
The images are an integral part of the description.

National and international shipping with careful and trackable packaging.
The works will be protected with special care, given the presence of glass.

Vairo Mongatti was born on October 24, 1934 in Florence, where he trained by earning a diploma at the Academy of Fine Arts and where he taught ornament for a few years at the art high school. He later held the chair that Morandi once held at the Academy of Fine Arts of Bologna and in '94 he resumed teaching engraving also at the Academy of Fine Arts in Florence, the city where he lives and works. He devoted himself to engraving almost exclusively starting from ’63, struck by a Morandi exhibition of engravings, which remains the fundamental reference point for understanding his now more than thirty-year graphic career, upon which he also exerted some influence from the study of Rembrandt, for that kind of black light that permeates things, from Canaletto, for the calligraphic clarity of the line, and from Fattori, for the expressive energy of the composition.
Mongatti is the founder of “Academia Nova,” the association with which he sought to promote a return to the figurative tradition of classical Italian aquaforte, of which he is today the leading figure in Italy.
Like Morandi, Mongatti favors still lifes, but his work is not devoid of landscapes. In his aquaforti, the things, immersed in a “quiet and motionless light” as Paolo Bellini wrote, unfold slowly, yet clearly before our eyes. The dense weave of diagonals in which they are enveloped and the passage of shadows, sometimes dense, sometimes more sparse over them, fix them firmly before the eye, and before our own consciousness.