(Cortona/Arezzo 1883–1966 Paris) Il lavoro agricolo, 1953–54, signed G. Severini, mixed media and tempera, pastel on thin cardboard, laid down on canvas, image size 30 x 37.5 cm/32 x 44 cm, framed, (PP)

We are grateful to Romana Severini Brunori for confirming the authenticity of this work and for her kind assistance with its cataloguing.

Photo certificate:
Finarte (auction no. 363, Milan, 31 March 1981, lot 60, page 44)

Provenance:
Gina Severini Franchina Collection, Rome; Pagliano Collection, Domodossola;
Private Collection, Italy (acquired at Finarte)

Exhibition:
Dal Futurismo a De Chirico: Roma Parigi New York: La grande arte italiana nel mondo, Fondazione Art Museo - Villa Ponti, Arona 16 July - 13 November 2005, exh. cat. page 43 with ill.

Literature:
D. Fonti, Gino Severini, Catalogo Ragionato, Milan, 1988, page 550, no. 911A (ill. incorrectly numbered 911);
Giorgio Muratore - Simonetta Lux, Palazzo dei Congressi, ed. Editalia, Rome, 1990, no. 191

“The work we are presenting is the draft version of the large decorative panel on the same subject, to be found in the foyer of the EUR Congress Centre in Rome.”

The agricultural work is the first in a series of seven large panels painted in tempera on plywood (about 8 metres high) which occupy the entire length of the interior front wall of the EUR Congress Centre foyer in Rome.
Severini started designing the decorative panels, as we learn from autobiographical notes at the Severini Archive in Rome, in December 1952, just after he had returned from Paris and from Meudon. He continued working on them throughout 1953, completing the panels in time for the Agricultural Fair in 1954. The decorative scheme initially involved five panels, but later on this was extended to seven. The subjects, from left to right, are: Agricultural Work; The Regions of Italy; Spring and Summer; Threshing; Autumn and Winter; Agricultural Loans; Tractors.
The panels, which feature recurring themes in Severini’s work from the early 1950s, are still in situ.
(Daniela Fonti, Gino Severini, Catalogo Ragionato, Milan, 1988, p. 550)