Lugano
Ennio Morlotti was born in Lecco in 1910. After an adolescence marked by a rebellious spirit, he spent a short period in Paris in 1937, where he had his first direct contact with the works of the great masters of the modern tradition. Upon his return, he enrolled at the Brera Academy of Fine Arts, where he studied from 1939 to 1942. During those same years, the Corrente di Vita Giovanile movement and magazine emerged—a hub of cultural renewal and opposition that brought together the most vibrant minds of the time. Morlotti joined Corrente in 1940. The group stood out for its vigorous pictorial style, blending Expressionism, Cubism, and the influence of Picasso, in open contrast to the return to tradition advocated by the Novecento Italiano movement.
Between 1945 and 1946, he created his celebrated landscape series known as Dossi, along with several works that deeply reflected on Picasso’s art, such as La donna che si lava (The Woman Washing Herself) and Le donne di Varsavia (The Women of Warsaw). He actively participated in postwar cultural life, collaborating with journals like “Il 45”, “Numero”, and “Pittura”.
In the postwar period, Morlotti joined the “Fronte Nuovo delle arti” and later became part of the “Gruppo degli Otto”, led by art critic Lionello Venturi. During these years, Morlotti gradually distanced himself from Cubist influences, developing a style increasingly his own: while retaining figurative elements in landscapes and still lifes, it was the painted matter – often applied with a palette knife – and color that became the true protagonists of his work.
In 1950 and 1951, he exhibited at the Catherine Viviano Gallery in New York, gaining his first international recognition. In addition to Venturi, his work was championed by major Italian critics such as Francesco Arcangeli, Roberto Longhi, Giovanni Testori, and Carlo Volpe. Arcangeli, in particular, included him among the “last naturalists,” seeing him as one of the heirs to the Lombard figurative tradition.
In the final years of his career, he broadened his thematic range, devoting himself to painting series such as Skulls, Rocks, and Bathers, partly inspired by the works of Cézanne. Ennio Morlotti died suddenly in Milan on December 15, 1992.
