Antonio LIGABUE (1899-1965) - Lot 23

Antonio LIGABUE (1899-1965) Plowing Oil on wood panel. Small very thin panel laminated to a panel and small horizontal crack. Monogrammed A.L. lower right. 8.5 x11.5 cm Provenance: -Gift from Mr. Anatole Jakowsky to Monsieur X. -Collection of Mr. X This little-known painter nevertheless left his mark on the history of naive art. He is one of the leading exponents of a naturalist poetic style, influenced by Douanier Rousseau. His favorite subjects were animals and bucolic scenes of fields and seasonal farm work. After a youth of wandering, poverty and solitude, Ligabue discovered his artistic gift. He painted on walls or trees (he sometimes slept in the forest) the landscapes and animals he had observed as a child at Zurich Zoo. The painter Mazzacurati discovered him in 1927, understood his talent and had him exhibited. His reputation as an artist was soon established. His economic situation improved, but he remained a marginal figure until his death. He suffered from severe depression and was hospitalized in a psychiatric ward on several occasions. His self-portraits scream out his pain, his anguish, his loneliness. Even after his success, Ligabue remained a desperate, lonely creature. Ligabue regularly stays on the farms of farmers who feed him in exchange for his paintings. Our work, beyond its naive beauty, nevertheless exudes a sense of the irreversible harshness of life. The horse's bent back, the farmer's slumped posture as he toils, the solitude of these two beings under the storm is poignant. Ligabue's art here lies in its authentic, primitive dimension. Ligabue's art here lies in its authentic, primitive dimension, for Ligabue paints without formalism, driven by an inner necessity, Ligabue touches us with the humanity of his gaze.