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Foresta col sole al tramonto (H. R.), 1968

GPO-0159

Forest with the Sun at Sunset (H. R.)

Photographic fragments applied to primed canvas

283 x 283 cm (four parts 100 x 100 cm each)

Signed, titled, and dated on the verso of canvas number 1: “Giulio Paolini / Foresta col sole al tramonto (H. R.) / 1968”

Prada Collection, Milan

At the point where the four canvases converge to form a lozenge, the four fragments of a colour reproduction of Henri Rousseau's The Forest in Winter at Sunset (1910) recompose the image of the sun painted by the Douanier.
The astral sphere that in the manner of a seal "holds" the four canvases, serves at the same time as a radiating nucleus: "The sun painted by Henri Rousseau in
The Forest in Winter at Sunset generates another painting under the same title”.1

1 G. Paolini in Giulio Paolini. 2121969, exhibition catalogue, Milan, Galleria De Nieubourg, 1969, n. pag.

Henri Rousseau, Nègre attaqué par un jaguar, 1910, oil on canvas, 114 x 162 cm, Kunstmuseum Basel, Basel; reproduction from I Maestri del Colore. Rousseau (Milan: Fratelli Fabbri Editori, 1966), plate XIII.

1969 Milan, Galleria De Nieubourg, Giulio Paolini. 2121969, from 21 February, repr. (detail).
2003 Milan, Fondazione Prada, Giulio Paolini 1960-1972, 29 October - 18 December, cited in the checklist of exhibited works p. 402 (with incorrect technique), col. repr. p. 227.
G. Paolini in Giulio Paolini. 2121969, exhibition catalogue, Milan, Galleria De Nieubourg, 1969; republished in Giulio Paolini 1960-1972, edited by G. Celant (Milan: Fondazione Prada, 2003), p. 227.
M. Disch, Giulio Paolini. Catalogo ragionato 1960-1999, vol. 1 (Milan: Skira editore, 2008), cat. no. 159 pp. 178-179, col. repr.
F. Fergonzi, "’Trasparenza etimologica’. Per una rilettura di Una lettera sul tempo (1968) di Giulio Paolini", in Giulio Paolini. Expositio, exhibition catalogue, Milan, Museo Poldi Pezzoli (Cinisello Balsamo: Silvana Editoriale, 2016), p. 29, not repr.
D. Viva, "La storia in abisso. Letteratura, fotografia e passato", in S. Bann et al., Il passato al presente. In tema 2 (Turin-Mantua: Fondazione Giulio e Anna Paolini and Corraini Edizioni, 2016), p. 74, col. repr. p. 69.
I. Bernardi, Giulio Paolini. Opere su carta: un laboratorio gestuale per la percezione dell’immagine (Turin: Prinp Editore, 2017), p. 72, col. repr.
Giulio Paolini. A come Accademia, exhibition catalogue, Rome, Accademia Nazionale di San Luca (Rome: Gangemi Editore, 2023), col. repr. pp. 238-239 (exhibition view Milan 2003).
Entry by Maddalena Disch, 30/04/2026