New York, NY, September 19, 2008 – The Italian Cultural Institute of New York will present a new exhibition of watercolors and drawings by the modern master Giorgio Morandi (1890 – 1964). On view September 23 through December 5, 2008 and curated by Renato Miracco, Director of the Italian Cultural Institute, Giorgio Morandi: Watercolors and Drawings, 1920- 1963 will bring together 18 drawings and 4 watercolors by the famous Bolognese artist.

The Italian Cultural Institute's presentation will be one of three exhibitions in New York this fall dedicated to the work of Giorgio Morandi. The Metropolitan Museum of Art will present Giorgio Morandi, 1890-1964, the artist's first American retrospective, from September 16 through December 14, and Giorgio Morandi: Etchings 1912-1956 will be on view at New York University's Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimò from October 1 through 31. Taken together, these three exhibitions represent the first opportunity in the United States for the public to see a significant collection of Morandi‟s work in one city.

Influenced by artists such as Caravaggio and Giotto, as well as the Cubist and Futurist movements, Morandi depicted deliberately limited subject matter using rigorous repetition and variation of color, proportion and shape. Giorgio Morandi: Watercolors and Drawings, 1920-1963 is comprised primarily of the still lives and landscapes for which Morandi is best known. Though the artist worked primarily as a painter, Morandi's works on paper reveal a dramatic shift in focus toward the pursuit of new extremes of economy and monumentality. These pared down and eloquent drawings and watercolors, which often border on abstraction, are imbued with a sense of quiet intimacy and are among the artist‟s most radical compositions.

“What matters most in Morandi‟s paintings, and even more so in the drawings, are the blank spaces in the still lives and landscapes,” said Renato Miracco, Director of the Italian Cultural Institute. “Between the forms that penetrate each other is what I call the soul’s breath. The painter achieves this through a meticulous and unshakeable drive for experimentation that, as Morandi states in his autobiography, also leaves a great deal of room for instinct: "I trust in its  forces, forgetting at the moment of creation any stylistic preconceptions."

“The Italian Cultural Institute is proud to pay homage to Morandi,” continued Dr. Miracco. “It is our hope that this exhibition and the companion presentation of Morandi‟s etchings at NYU, in tandem with the Met's exquisite retrospective, will shine a greater spotlight in this country on the important achievements of one of Italy's greatest 20th century masters.