Ritratto dell’artista come modello, 1980
GPO-0434
Portrait of the Artist as a Model
Pencil on reversed canvas, primed canvas, plaster casts
Two canvases 180 x 180 cm each, overall dimensions 190 x 400 x 260 cm
Giorgio Marconi Collection, Milan
An overturned canvas propped up against a plaster cast of the head Praxiteles' Hermes, so that it appears to be held by the half-hidden figure, whose hands drawn on the stretcher are all that we see. The overturned canvas is placed on a second canvas lying on the ground and seen from the recto; plaster casts of the anatomical parts of a hypothetical figure are scattered on top of and around it.
The figure holding a canvas in front of itself constitutes a declared (self-)portrait by the artist, while the cast of the classical sculpture represents the model par excellence of any portrait.
“Two faces in one, the artist is his model: by dint of chasing after it, of pursuing an ideal model, the artist ends up assuming its likeness".1
The same theme was developed in two other variants, one made during the same year (GPO-0433) and the other dated 1981 (GPO-0445).
1 G. Paolini in conversation with M. Disch (2004), in M. Disch, Giulio Paolini. Catalogo ragionato 1960-1999, vol. 1 (Milan: Skira editore, 2008), cat. no. 433 p. 444.
• Casts on the ground: Borghese Gladiator, 1st century BC, marble, h 155 cm, Musée du Louvre, Paris.
• Head: Praxiteles, Hermes and the Infant Dionysos, 350-330 BC, marble, h 215 cm, Archaeological Museum, Olympia.
| 1983 (?) | Berlin, KaDeWe, Arte italiana. Studio Marconi im KaDeWe, 21 March - 9 April, repr. n. pag. (detail). |
| 1983-84 | Suzzara, Galleria d’Arte Contemporanea, Imago. Immagini negli anni Settanta, 30 October - 11 December, touring to: Ferrara, Palazzo dei Diamanti, 15 January - 19 February 1984, repr. p. 46 (detail). |
| 1988 | Moscow, Palazzo delle Esposizioni, Artisti italiani contemporanei, May - June, repr. p. 75 (detail, erroneously dated “1979”). |
| 2004-05 | Milan, Fondazione Marconi, Autobiografia di una galleria. Lo Studio Marconi 1965/1992, 11 November 2004 - 22 January 2005, col. repr. p. 172 (erroneously dated “1979”). |
| 2007 | Milan, Galleria Giò Marconi, Giulio Paolini, 4 May - 27 July. |
| 2011 | Milan, Fondazione Marconi, Grandi opere... Grandi, 23 September - 17 November, no catalogue. |
| • | G. Paolini in conversation with M. Disch (2004), in M. Disch, Giulio Paolini. Catalogo ragionato 1960-1999 (Milan: Skira editore, 2008), cat. no. 433 p. 444. |
| • | Giulio Paolini. “Una collezione ’60/’80” (Milan: Studio Marconi, 1990), col. repr. p. 169 (erroneously dated “1979”). |
| • | L.V. Masini, L’arte del Novecento. Dall’Espressionismo al Multimediale, vol. XI: L’Arte come idea (Florence-Rome: Giunti and Gruppo Editoriale Espresso, 2003), col. repr. no. 2847 p. 558 (detail, erroneously dated “1979”). |
| • | Autobiografia di una galleria. Lo Studio Marconi 1965/1992 (Milan: Skira editore, 2004), col. repr. p. 172 (erroneously dated “1979”). |
| • | M. Disch, Giulio Paolini. Catalogo ragionato 1960-1999, vol. 1 (Milan: Skira editore, 2008), cat. no. 434 p. 445, col. repr. |
