This catalogue of works by Alberto Sughi is edited by Mariapia Branchi

This monograph, which forms part of the large anthological exhibition dedicated to the work of Alberto Sughi, one of the leading players in Italian art from the beginning of the 1950s, presents 642 works, including paintings, tempera works, drawings and etchings created between 1959 and 2004 and currently part of the ‘Centro Studi ed Archivio della Comunicazione’ (CSAC) collection of the University of Parma. The collection includes these large works: Città di Notte (1958), Personaggi della Cena (1976), Addio alla casa Rossa (1992), and Rimmel (2004).

Alberto Sughi is, without a doubt, one of the most important painters who emerged from the complex post-war debate between realism and abstraction; he is also one of the artists who consistently utilised as a point of reference – from the end of the 1950s throughout the 1960s – Italian realist art, the new experiences of European painting that focused on figuration, the informal movement, and American Abstract Expressionist painting.

This monograph re-evaluates Sughi’s body of work in the light of the realist debate, identifying the differences in the artist’s career path compared to those artists who focused on post-cubist art and then returned to a more traditionalist representation. The monograph then suggests new ways of re-reading the post-war period and above all the 1950s and 60s when Sughi joined the European informal movement and the American Abstract Expressionist movement to suggest a new path, a path that from the late 1950s to the present day has continued to move towards a reflection on time and the meaning of existence, never towards a representation of the real through painted forms.

The catalogue contains the works on show and a reproduction of all paintings and drawings by Alberto Sughi held in the CSAC collection. It is introduced by two essays: one by Arturo Carlo Quintavalle and the other by Gloria Bianchino (who is Director of the CSAC) - both are also responsible for the long interview with the artist. The technical information is by Mariapia Branchi, who edited the book, including the critical texts.

Skira / CSAC Parma University

Parma, Salone delle Scuderie in Pilotta
21 December 2005 – 22 January 2006

The official catalogue is available at the exhibition bookshop and at the Skira bookstore in via Torino 61 in Milan and from January 2006 in all Italian bookstores.