(Gorizia 1870–1943 Venice)
Fireworks, signed Italico Brass,
oil on canvas, 65 x 80 cm, framed, (GG)

Provenance:
Family of the artist.

Catalogued and illustrated in:
A. Alexandre, ‘Venise par Italico Brass’, Galerie Georges Petit, exhibition catalogue, Paris 1914;
Ugo Nebbia, Italico Brass pittore di Venezia, Rivista XIX, 1935;
Ausstellung Zeitgenössischer Italienischer Maler und Bildhauer, exhibition catalogue, Zurich, 1940;
catalogo illustrato della XXII Esposizione Internationale d’arte della città di Venezia, Officine Grafiche Ferrari, Venice 1940;
Mostra di opere del pittore Italico Brass, exhibition catalogue, Castello di Gorizia, Gorizia 1947;
L. Damiani, Arte del Novecento in Friuli, il Liberty e gli anni venti, I, Udine 1978;
Maria Masau Dan, Italico Brass, Castello di Gorizia, Electa, Milan 1991.

Exhibited:
Galerie Georges Petit, Venise par Italico Brass, Paris, 1-17 May 1914;
XXII Esposizione Internazionale d’arte della città di Venezia, Venice 1940;
Ausstellung Zeitgenössischer Italienischer Maler und Bildhauer, Zurich 1940;
Mostra di opere del pittore Italico Brass, Castello di Gorizia, Gorizia, 3-17 August 1947;
Italico Brass, Castello di Gorizia, Gorizia 6-22 September 1991.

Italico Brass was born in Gorizia in December 1870. He studied at the Academy of Fine Arts, Munich under the landscape painter Karl Raupp (1837-1918).
In 1888 he moved to Paris, which had become the world’s contemporary art capital and a destination of choice for many Italian artists. There he married a Russian woman called Lina Rebecca Vidgoff. The couple settled permanently in Venice in 1895.

Painting had become Brass’s principle source of expression by the turn of the century, and he produced numerous portraits in these years, along with landscapes and views in the Venetian 18th century vedutista tradition.

Shortly after the outbreak of World War I, Brass went to the front as a war painter and was commissioned to produce sketches and studies, which were published in a volume entitled Sulle Orme di San Marco in 1917.

He painted them directly on the battlefield. Concrete Realism is a constant feature of Brass’s art.
This present lot depicts a view of the Venetian lagoon, probably painted during the Redentore Feast that was held in the lagoon every year on the third Sunday in July. Given the fluid brushwork it can be dated between 1912-1914; just before World War I. A second version was exhibited at the Venice Biennale in 1914 and a third belongs to Brass’s heirs, painted in a warmer range of colours.