Vincenzo La Bella (1872-1954) - Fuori la maschera ! - NO RESERVE

Vincenzo La Bella (Naples 1872 - 1954)
"Away with the mask!", 1944
Oil on canvas, 50 x 70 cm, signed lower right with "V. La Bella" and dated '44. The inscription "Away with the mask!" is placed at the upper left. In a gilded Rocaille frame (frame measurements: [to be inserted]). Good conservation condition.

The artist
Costume painter, portraitist, interior decorator, illustrator, lithographer and poster designer, Vincenzo La Bella was born in Naples in 1872. He trained at the Istituto di Belle Arti under Gioacchino Toma and Domenico Morelli. From 1892 he worked as an illustrator in Paris for Le Monde illustré, then in New York, before returning to Naples, where he frequented the city’s artistic circles and the Gambrinus café. In his work there is recurrence of colorism, the brushstroke, and strong chiaroscuro contrast. He especially loved themes of festivity, carnival, and masks, and he illustrated Poe’s The Masque of the Red Death. He died in Naples in 1954.

The painting
Half-portrait of a smiling man with black, curly hair, captured in three-quarter view as he looks at the observer. He wears a white shirt with a dark red collar and holds a yellowish circular form (bread or cheese) with his hands. Against a dark green-brown background stands the inscription "Away with the mask!", which gives the title to the work. The brushwork is broad and tactile, especially in the shirt, built with whites, grays, and greens laid down in wide strokes. The result is an expressive realism of a twentieth-century taste, with a lively, popular tone. Painted in mature age, at 72, the work revisits the artist’s beloved theme of the mask, in an unusual single-portrait key."