Fulvio Testa: Recent Watercolors

FULVIO TESTA

J I L L N EWH O U S E

Fulvio Testa Recent Watercolors

Jill Newhouse Gallery 4 East 81 st Street New York, NY Tel ( 212 ) 249-9216 email: maildrop@jillnewhouse.com

This catalogue accompanies the exhibition Fulvio Testa: Recent Watercolors from October 2 to October 26, 2012 Jill Newhouse Gallery 4 East 81 st Street New York, NY 10028 Tel ( 212 ) 249-9216 email: maildrop@jillnewhouse.com www.jillnewhouse.com

Many thanks to Karen Wilkin, and Linda Hollick at New York Review Books.

cover detail: Untitled 15 , 2012

Watercolor 12 ¾ × 14 5 ⁄ 8

inches ( 32 . 3 × 37 . 3 cm)

FULVIO TESTA was born in Verona, Italy in 1947 . He is the author and illustrator of the well-loved children’s books The Endless Journey and A Long Trip to Z, as well as the Harvard Classics Edition of Elizabethan Drama. Testa’s most recent project is the newly illustrated edition of Geoffrey Brock’s translation of Pinocchio , published by The New York Review Children’s Collection, with an introduction by Umberto Eco. Testa’s watercolors and paintings have been exhibited internationally since 1976 in museums, libraries and galleries including the Cl aude Bernard Gallery and Denise Cadé Gallery in New York, The Art Institute of Chicago, The Fogg Museum at Harvard University, the Monterey Museum of Modern Art in California, the Museo d’Arte Moderna in Gazoldo degli Ippoliti, Italy, and many others. Testa’s works on paper have been the subject of essays by art critic Karen Wilkin, who introduces our exhibition, the late John Russell, and by Dana Gioia, former chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts. In 2004 , the catalogue of Testa’s solo exhibition at Schmidt Dean Gallery was accompanied by poems by W.S. Piero.

Fulvio Testa currently resides in New York and Verona, Italy.

FU L V I O T E S TA : R ECENT WORKS By Karen Wilkin

Anyone familiar with Fulvio Testa’s enchanting picture books or his meticulous, whimsical illustrations for such children’s classics as Aesop’s Fables and Pinocchio , could be forgiven for thinking that the Fulvio Testa who paints loosely stained images evocative of enigmatic landscapes is a completely different individual, with the same name as the distinguished book artist. In fact, the two are one person, complementary halves of an abundantly gifted painter and draftsman who, not surprisingly, given his double practice and double persona, has long divided his time between Italy and New York. Yet longer acquaintance with Testa’s two bodies of work suggests that they are less different than might first be assumed. Not only do his illustrations and his “independent” paintings share an otherworldly, tender, suggestive palette, but his poetic, allusive, watercolor “landscapes”—for lack of a better word—are informed by the same free-wheeling imagination and rich sense of invention that allow him to bring to life the implications of familiar texts in fresh ways or to present a narrative by means of images alone. And like his illustrations, Testa’s landscapes hold our attention by revealing more and more complex visual incidents, calling up more and more associations, the longer we spend with them.

Testa’s most recent watercolor landscapes are among his boldest, his most spontaneous, and his most uninhibitedly gestural to date. Some of their painterly qualities and their frontality, Testa says, are functions of how the paper he chose responded to paint, but the fundamental character of the works is obviously a reflection of the artist’s intention. Seemingly uncalculated sweeps and stabs of a loaded brush, rhythmic touches, dry or fluent lines, and pools of color, at first encounter, appear to be the result of pure improvisation, the traces of a delighted investigation of the special properties of a fluid, unpredictable medium, teetering on the brink of abstraction. Concentrate on these fragile, seemingly tenuous accumulations of brushmarks and liquid dabs of pigment, however, and they magically become increasingly real , although strangely non-specific. Testa’s “improvisations” start to read as comments on known but not quite identifiable places, like imperfectly remembered regions visited long ago or traveled only in dreams. For anyone who knows the landscape of Northern Italy, Testa’s fleeting, almost-not- there references to hills and dense woods seem oddly familiar, although the open spaces alluded to in other paintings can provoke very different associations. Similarly, Testa’s colors can suggest particular climate zones, times of day, seasons, weather, emotional moods, even qualities of light characteristic of actual places.

Then, just as we begin to be convinced that we are confronted by free, loosely constructed equivalents for specific parts of the world, these surprising little paintings shift gears yet again. The landscape image that we felt we were on the verge of indentifying dissolves into a melting structure of strokes, ribbons of line, and transparent washes. In fact, it’s the tension between unbridled painterliness and the potent, albeit unstable and elusive sense of the particular that keeps us looking at Testa’s watercolor “landscapes,” just as the tension between his economical drawing and his convincing allusions to real experience does in his illustrations. But while Testa’s towering reputation as an illustrator attests to his ability to translate words into self- sufficient, eloquent images, what sets his watercolor “landscapes” apart is their power to stir our emotions, our accumulated associations, and our memories without language. In his most recent series of moody, fascinating works, Testa successfully bypasses words in favor of the essential elements of painting itself, freed from reference and expressively deployed.

New York, August 2012

Untitled 4 , 2010 Watercolor, 9 × 13 inches ( 22.9 × 33 cm) Signed and dated lower right

Untitled 5 , 2010 Watercolor, 9 ½ × 12 ¼ inches ( 24 . 1 × 31 . 1 cm) Signed and dated lower left

Untitled 6 , 2011 Watercolor, 12 × 8 ¾ inches ( 30 . 5 × 22 . 2 cm) Signed lower right

Untitled 9 , 2012

Watercolor, 15 × 11 7 ⁄ 8

inches ( 38 × 30 . 3 cm)

Signed and dated lower right

Untitled 10 , 2012

Watercolor, 15 5 ⁄ 8

× 12 3 ⁄ 8

inches ( 39 . 8 × 31 . 4 cm)

Signed and dated lower right

Untitled 11

Watercolor, 11 5 ⁄ 8

× 16 ½ inches ( 29 . 5 × 41 . 8 cm) Signed lower right

Untitled 12 , 2012 Watercolor, 15 ¾ × 12 ¼ inches ( 39 . 9 × 31 cm) Signed and dated lower right

Untitled 13 , 2012

Watercolor, 13 3 ⁄ 8

× 15 7 ⁄ 8

inches ( 33 . 9 × 40 . 3 cm)

Signed and dated lower right

Untitled 14 , 2012

Watercolor, 13 ¼ × 15 1 ⁄ 8

inches ( 33 . 6 × 38 . 3 cm)

Signed and dated lower right

Untitled 15 , 2012

Watercolor, 12 ¾ × 14 5 ⁄ 8

inches ( 32 . 3 × 37 . 3 cm)

Signed and dated lower right

Untitled 16 , 2011

Watercolor, 10 5 ⁄ 8

× 15 3 ⁄ 8

inches ( 27 × 39 . 1 cm)

Signed and dated lower right

Untitled 17

Watercolor, 10 ½ × 15 1 ⁄ 8

inches ( 26 . 6 × 38 . 4 cm)

Untitled 21 , 2008

Watercolor, 11 1 ⁄ 8

× 15 ¼ inches ( 28 . 1 × 38 . 7 cm)

Signed and dated lower left

Untitled 22 , 2009

Watercolor, 11 1 ⁄ 8

× 15 3 ⁄ 8

inches ( 28 . 2 × 39 cm)

Signed and dated lower right

Untitled 23 , 2012 Watercolor, 9 ½ × 13 ¼ inches ( 24 × 33 . 6 cm) Signed and dated lower right

Untitled 24 , 2012 Watercolor, 9 ¾ × 11 ¾ inches ( 24 . 7 × 29 . 7 cm) Signed and dated lower left

Untitled 26 , 2012

Watercolor, 9 5 ⁄ 8

× 13 ¼ inches ( 24 . 5 × 33 . 6 cm)

Signed and dated lower right

Untitled 28 , 2011

Watercolor, 11 5 ⁄ 8

× 8 ¼ inches ( 29 . 4 × 21 cm)

Signed and dated lower right

Untitled 3 , 2008 Watercolor, 14 × 13 inches ( 37 × 26.1 cm) Signed lower left

Solo Exhibitions 2011 Big Town Gallery, Rochester, VT 2010 Konstnärgarden, Jönköping, Sweden 2004 Schmidt Dean Gallery, Philadelphia, PA 2003 Artcore, Toronto, Canada 2002 Denise Cadé Gallery, New York, NY Museo d’Arte Moderna, Gazoldo degli Ippoliti, Italy 2001 Galerie Stühler, Berlin, Germany Cá Cornera, Porto Viro, Italy Queens College Art Center, New York, NY 2000 Denise Cadé Gallery, New York, NY 1998 Denise Cadé Gallery, New York, NY 1995 Galleria Nuages, Milan, Italy Galeria de Arte Mexicano, Mexico City, Mexico 1993 Cava Gallery, Philadelphia, PA 1992 Roger Ramsay Gallery, Chicago, IL 1990

1988 Claude Bernard Gallery, New York, NY 1987 Cava Gallery, Philadelphia, PA 1986 Grand Rapids Art Museum, Grand Rapids, MI Roger Ramsay Gallery, Chicago, IL 1985 Galleria Civica d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Verona, Italy Jan Turner Gallery, Los Angeles, CA 1984 Libreria Galleria Giulia, Rome, Italy 1983 Studio De Rossi, Verona, Italy 1982 Galleria d’Arte il Vicolo, Genova, Italy 1978 Museum of Modern Art, Monterey, CA 1977 Galérie Documenta, Paris, France 1976 Galerie Maag, Zurich, Switzerland Galleria Quadragono, Conegliano, Italy Selected Bibliography Wilkin, Karen. Fulvio Testa: Watercolors , Exhibition Catalogue, Schmidt Dean Gallery, 2004 Piero, W.S. Fulvio Testa: Watercolors , Exhibition Catalogue, Schmidt Dean Gallery, 2004 The Truth’s Hard Edge, Un Resevoir Á Paysage , Exhibition Catalogue, Roger Ramsay Gallery, 1992 McNear, Sarah. Fulvio Testa , Exhibition Catalogue, Allentown Art Museum, 1990

Allentown Art Museum, Allentown, PA Claude Bernard Gallery, New York, NY 1989 Roger Ramsay Gallery, Chicago, IL Cava Gallery, Philadelphia, PA

Selected Children’s Books in English

Gioia, Dana. Boulevard, 1989 , vol. 4 no. 1 , pp. 124 - 30 Russell, John. New York Times , July 15 , 1988 Donohoe, Victoria. Philadelphia Inquirer , 1987 Sozanski, Edward. Philadelphia Inquirer , 1987 Timpanelli, Gioia & Gioia, Dana. Traveling Images and Observations . Verona, Italy: Grafiche AZ, 1987 Berg, Stephen . A Strange Gentleness , Exhibition Catalogue, Cava Gallery, 1987 Taylor, Sue. “Diminutive Pictures Make a Big Impression”, Chicago Sun Times , March 27 , 1986 Artner, Alan G. “Testa Brings Italy’s Old Romance to America”, Chicago Tribune , March 21 , 1986 Montenovesi, Antonella. Fulvio Testa , Exhibition Catalogue, Galleria Civica d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, 1985 Grube Ernst & Dennia Komac. Fulvio Testa , Exhibition Catalogue, Jan Turner Gallery, & Grand Rapids Art Museum, 1985 Clothier, Peter. Los Angeles Weekly , December 27 , 1985 Quesada, Mario. Attraversamento , 1984 Cortenova, Giorgio & Italo Mussa. Metropolis , 1983

illustrator Pinocchio. Carlo Collodi, with an introduction by Umberto Eco, 2012 Aesop’s Fables , Fiona Waters, 2010 The Land Where the Ice Cream Grows , Anthony Burgess, 1979 A Long Trip to Teatime. Anthony Burgess, 1976

author and illustrator The Visit, 2002

The Endless Journey , 2001 Too Much Garbage, 2001 Cat and Mouse and Something to Do, 1998

A Long Trip to Z, 1997 Time to Get Out, 1994 If You Take a Paintbrush , 1994 If You Take a Pencil , 1993

Never Satisfied, 1993 Wolf’s Favor, 1990 The Paper Airplane , with Kurt Baumann, 1988

If You Look Around You, 1987 If You Seek Adventure, 1984 Leaves, 1983 Doory Story (The Little Library), 1981 Short Step , with A. Sage, 1978

Selected Public Collections Achenbach Foundation, San Francisco, CA Allentown Art Museum, Allentown, PA

Arkansas Art Center, Little Rock, AK Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Munich, Germany Fogg Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA Grand Rapids Art Museum, Grand Rapids, MI Library of Congress, Washington, DC New York Public Library, New York, NY Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, PA

Jill Newhouse Gallery Digital Editions

Lino Mannocci Recent Monotypes and Postcards (2012)

Unknown Corot Unpublished Drawings (2012)

Edouard Vuillard: Portraits Reconsidered (2012)

Josep Santilari Pere Santilari Paintings and Drawings (2011)

Drive / Wendy Mark: New Work (2011)

Auguste Rodin: Intimate Works (2011) Sculpture, Drawings and Watercolors; Photographs and Letters

On Paper: Painted, Printed, Drawn Curated by Karen Wilkin (2010)

Bonnard, Roussel, Vuillard (2010)

Drawings from the Collection of Curtis O. Baer (2010)

Wolf Kahn: Early Drawings (2009)

Graham Nickson: Italian Skies Recent Watercolors and Early Oil Paintings (2009)

gallery director: christa savino

photography by robert lorenzson design by lawrence sunden

biographical information and exhibition listing compiled by megan weissner

copyright 2012 jill newhouse llc

A.L. Barye Max Beckmann Pierre Bonnard François Bonvin Eugène Boudin Rodolphe Bresdin Sir E.C. Burne-Jones Alexander Calder Théodore Chassériau John Constable J.B.C. Corot Gustave Courbet Edgar Degas Eugène Delacroix Charles Demuth Maurice Denis André Derain Raoul Dufy Henri Fantin-Latour Lyonel Feininger Paul Gauguin John Gibson Tom Goldenberg Henri Harpignies Erich Heckel Wenzel Hollar Paul Huet Victor Hugo J.B. Jongkind Wolf Kahn Paul Klee Gustav Klimt Oskar Kokoschka Georges Lemmen Léon-Augustin Lhermitte Max Liebermann Aristide Maillol Edouard Manet Lino Mannocci Wendy Mark Henri Matisse Adolph Menzel J.F. Millet Claude Monet Georgio Morandi Graham Nickson Camille Pissarro Maurice Prendergast Odilon Redon Pierre Renoir Enrico Riley Auguste Rodin Théodore Rousseau Ker-Xavier Roussel Kikuo Saito George Sand Andre de Segonzac Georges Seurat Alfred Sisley Paul Signac Fulvio Testa Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec Edouard Vuillard Luisa Waber Anthonie Waterloo A.L. Barye Max Beckmann Pierre Bonnard François Bonvin Eugène Boudin Rodolphe Bresdin Sir E.C. Burne-Jones Alexander Calder Théodore Chassériau John Constable J.B.C. Corot Gustave Courbet Edgar Degas Eugène Delacroix Charles Demuth Maurice Denis André Derain Raoul Dufy Henri Fantin-Latour Lyonel Feininger Paul Gauguin John Gibson Tom Goldenberg Henri Harpignies Erich Heckel Wenzel Hollar Paul Huet Victor Hugo J.B. Jongkind Wolf Kahn Paul Klee Gustav Klimt Oskar Kokoschka Georges Lemmen Léon-Augustin Lhermitte Max Liebermann Aristide Maillol Edouard Manet Lino Mannocci Wendy Mark Henri Matisse Adolph Menzel J.F. Millet Claude Monet Georgio Morandi Graham Nickson Camille Pissarro Maurice Prendergast Odilon Redon Pierre Renoir Enrico Riley Auguste Rodin Théodore Rousseau Ker-Xavier Roussel Kikuo Saito George Sand Andre de Segonzac Georges Seurat Alfred Sisley Paul Signac Fulvio Testa Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec Edouard Vuillard Luisa Waber Anthonie Waterloo A.L. Barye Max Beckmann Pierre Bonnard François Bonvin Eugène Boudin Rodolphe Bresdin Sir E.C. Burne-Jones Alexander Calder Théodore Chassériau John Constable J.B.C. Corot Gustave Courbet Edgar Degas Eugène Delacroix Charles Demuth Maurice Denis André Derain Raoul Dufy Henri Fantin-Latour Lyonel Feininger Paul Gauguin John Gibson Tom Goldenberg Henri Harpignies Erich Heckel Wenzel Hollar Paul Huet Victor Hugo J.B. Jongkind Wolf Kahn Paul Klee Gustav Klimt Oskar Kokoschka Georges Lemmen WWW.JILLNEWHOUSE.COM