(Rome 1899–1975)
I pastori, 1934, oil on wood panel, 73 x 105 cm, framed

Provenance:
Galleria Russo, Rome (stamp on the reverse)
Private Collection, Italy

Exhibited:
Rome, Il Quadriennale d’Arte Nazionale, Palazzo delle Esposizioni, February/July 1935, cat. p. 46 no. 7
“Fausto Pirandello, Forma e materia, dipinti e disegni 1921–1972”, curated by V. Sgarbi (travelling exhibition), Vittoria (Ragusa), Sala Mazzone, December 2009/February 2010; Salemi, Castello Normanno Svevo, February/May 2010
Spoleto, 53° Festival dei Due Mondi, June/July 2010
Venice, Fausto Pirandello – I Nudi, Palazzo Grimani, July/November 2011
Milan, Post Zang Tumb Tuuum. Art Life Politics: Italia 1918–1945, curated by G. Celant, Fondazione Prada, February/June 2018

Literature:
G. Giuffrè, Fausto Pirandello, con un’appendice di scritti inediti, Edizione della Cometa, Rome 1984, pl. 44
G. Appella/G. Giuffrè, Pirandello 1899–1975, catalogue of the exhibition in Macerata, Palazzo Ricci, 1990, p. 19 with ill.
C. Gian Ferrari, Fausto Pirandello, De Luca ed., Rome, 1991, no. 64 M. Quesada, Fausto Pirandello, in AA. VV., Nove Maestri della Scuola Romana: Donghi-Fazzini-Ferrazzi-Mafai -Pirandello-Raphael-Scipione-Trombadori-Ziveri, SEAT ed., Turin, 1992, p. 256
E. Pontiggia/C. F. Carli, La grande Quadriennale del 1935, la nuova arte italiana, Mondadori Electa, Milan, 2006, p. 149
C. Gian Ferrari/F. D’Amico/F. Matitti, Fausto Pirandello catalogo generale, Mondadori Electa, Milan, 2009, no. 98
C. Gian Ferrari/M. V. Clarelli/F. Matitti, Fausto Pirandello alle Quadriennali del 1935 e del 1939, Electa, catalogue of the exhibition in Rome, Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna, 2010, no. 10

Magazines and Newspapers:
Caputi, in “Espansione”, 1935, p. 18
Pensabene, in “Il Tevere”, 19 March 1935
in “Quadrivio”, 14 April 1935
Saini, in “Il Fiore”, 12 December 1939, p. 13

The third-born child of the writer and playwright Luigi Pirandello, the young Fausto initially became interested in the figurative arts through sculpture, taking lessons in drawing from Lipinsky. Then, in 1920, following his entrance into the Accademia del Nudo in Rome, the allure of painting triumphed over the other artistic disciplines. Gauguin, Cézanne, van Gogh, Kokoschka and the Italians Armando Spadini and Felice Carena were the objects of his admiration and study. Towards the end of the 1920s a trip to Paris brought Pirandello into contact with “les italiens de Paris”, the name given to De Chirico, Savinio, Severini, Tozzi, Paresce and de Pisis who would all contribute to the development of Pirandello’s highly individual artistic language.
The 1930s and 40s represent the most mature and successful period of Pirandello’s art. The paintings from these years present us with expansive nudes, mellow still lifes and enigmatic interiors originating in an exploration of the metaphysical and the shifting perspectives of post-Cubist art and study of the past, from Piero della Francesca to Mantegna.
In 1935 the Rome Quadriennale dedicated a whole room to him, and following on from this, he participated in the great exhibition of Italian art in Budapest.