Michele Condor (1934-2007) - Natura morta con frutta e oggetti

Interesting and vivid still life by Hungarian-born painter Michele Condor, active in Italy since the second half of the 1950s. The composition presents an intricate arrangement of domestic objects, bottles, vessels and fruit laid out on a blue plate, atop a table covered by an intense red drape. In the background additional elements appear, including a chair and a decorated fabric, while on the right a large ochre shape contributes to the balance of the composition. The work stands out for its rich color palette and the energetic, tactile brushwork, with the forms built up through adjacent patches of color and contrasts between warm and cool tones. Particularly suggestive is the relationship between the bright red of the tablecloth, the greens and yellows of the fruit, and the intense blues of the plate and surrounding objects. The composition reveals evident Post-Impressionist and Cézannian influences, recognizable in the construction of volumes through color, in the deliberately articulated perspective and in the freedom of the painting technique. References to the lessons of Henri Matisse are also perceptible, especially in the liveliness of the color combinations. Hand-signed at the bottom right. Dimensions of the painting: 70x50 cm (90x70 cm with frame). The frame is to be considered as a gift from the seller. Michele Condor (1934 - 2007) was a painter and etcher of Hungarian origin, active in Italy since the second half of the 1950s, a notable figure of Florentine figurative painting of the late twentieth century. After the Hungarian revolution of 1956, he left his homeland and moved to Italy, initially settling in Rome and later in Florence. Between 1957 and 1960 he studied at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Roma with Cipriano Efisio Oppo, an important exponent of Italian painting of the twentieth century, then continued his training at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Firenze under Giovanni Colacicchi. Between 1962 and 1965 he realized an important cycle of frescoes at the Cemetery of Misericordia in Soffiano, Florence, inspired by the great Italian Renaissance tradition, from Masaccio to Piero della Francesca and Raphael. In 1962 he produced the engraving Composition with Figures, of which an exemplar is preserved at the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, a significant testimony to his graphic activity. In 1967 he exhibited at the Saletta Mino da Fiesole, on that occasion declaring his fidelity to figurative painting, in a period dominated by abstract and informal experiments. His production, characterized by notable technical mastery, color sensitivity and continuous experimentation, traverses numerous artistic currents of the twentieth century. His early works bear the influence of Northern Expressionism from Emil Nolde, Edvard Munch and Oskar Kokoschka; subsequently Condor deepened the plastic research of Henry Moore and Pablo Picasso, the tonal painting of Giorgio Morandi, and the post-Impressionist experiences of Cézanne, Matisse, Monet and Seurat. In the seventies there emerges also a particular affinity with Italian Magical Realism, especially in the painting of Felice Casorati, Antonio Donghi and Cagnaccio di San Pietro, recognizable in the solidity of the figures, the precision of the drawing, and the compactness of the color surfaces. His production includes portraits, female nudes, motherhood, still lifes, symbolic compositions, religious paintings, drawings and engravings. Among the most characteristic subjects is Don Quixote, protagonist of numerous works in which the artist symbolically addresses the relationship between dream, reality and the human condition.

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