Luigi Corbellini (Italian-American, 1901-1968),
Oil painting on canvas
Hand signed lower right with dedication
Dimensions: 25 X 16.5 X 2 in. Work Size: 22 x 13 in.
It bore a gallery label verso but it is no longer there.
Depicting a still life with a white pitcher holding dark red and pink gladiolus stems.
Luigi Corbellini (1901 – 1968) was an Italian post-impressionist painter and sculptor.
Corbellini was born in 1901 in Piacenza, Italy, the fourth of twelve children of Celeste Corbellini and his wife Giuseppina Gazzola. He began art lessons there at a young age. At thirteen, he joined the Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera, Brera Academy in Milan, and after that the Albertina in Turin. In 1920, when Corbellini was nineteen, the Desclée de Brouwer publishing firm of Bruges announced an international painting competition which he won with a portrait of the Madonna. He was then taken on in the firm's lithograph studio. He arrived in Bruges speaking no French, which he had to learn. He also studied painting with Flori van Acker. He worked for Desclée de Brouwer until 1923 and later noted that this was the only job he had ever had. In 1923, Corbellini moved to Paris and took a room in a boarding house in Montmartre, waiting for a place at the Bateau-Lavoir. A year later, he was able to take a studio which had once been occupied by Pablo Picasso.
In the summer of 1924, Corbellini was painting scenes in Deauville, where one day his work was admired by Robert de Rothschild, who invited him to paint the portrait of his daughter. This led on to other work. Boni de Castellane commissioned him to paint all of his horses, and Corbellini was able to move from Montmartre to Montparnasse.
By 1928, Corbellini was exhibiting work at the salon of the Société des Artistes Indépendants, later at the Salon des Tuileries, Salon d'Automne, and others. His paintings continued to be exhibited in Parisian galleries until the 1960s. He is of the generation of the Ecole de Paris, School of Paris. He became a painter of floral compositions, portraits, landscapes, cityscapes and genre scenes. He was also known for his sculpture.
In 1941, during the Second World War, with Maurice Dufrêne, Pierre Gandon, Gérard Cochet, and others Corbellini was one of the few painters and sculptors who received the higher rate of 10,000 Francs from the City of Paris to compensate artists and intellectuals for loss of income.
In 1947 Corbellini moved to New York City. American art dealer Wally Findlay, of Wally Findlay Galleries began to represent Corbellini, bringing his Parisian paintings to America and showing them in his galleries in New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles. Along with Francois Gall, Michel Henry, Jules Rene Herve, Andre Gisson, Marcel Dyf, Dietz Edzard, Gaston Sebire, Jean Dufy, Claude Venard, Elisee Maclet, Yolande Ardissone, Gen Paul, Andre Hambourg, Jean Dufy, Gaston Sebire, Paul Aizpiri, Constantine Kluge, Jacques Bouyssou, Le Pho, Henri Maik Hecht, he exemplified a Ecole de Paris sensibility in his work.
He spent the last years of his life travelling the world. He had exhibitions in New York, Los Angeles, Pasadena, Palm Beach, Caracas, Tahiti, Hong Kong, and Japan.
Exhibitions
France
Galerie Carmine, Paris: 1927, 1928, 1930, 1931
Galerie Armand Drouant, Paris: 1931, 1933
Galerie Barreiro, Paris: 1932, 1934, 1936
Galerie Borghèse, Paris: 1935
Galerie Charpentier, Paris: 1937
Galerie Dalpayrat, Limoges: 1937
Galerie Grand, Lausanne: 1937
Galerie Aktuaryus, Strasbourg: 1938
Galerie Chardin, Paris: 1944, 1945
Galerie Jouffroy, Paris: 1944
Galerie d'Orsel, Paris: 1945
Galerie Mignon-Massard, Nantes: 1945
Galerie Drouant-David, Paris: 1948
Galerie Bonval, Paris: 1949
Galerie J. Hamon, Le Havre: 1950
Galerie Malaval, Lyon: 1956
Galerie Durand-Ruel, Paris : 1956, 1958, 1960, 1962
United States
University of Colombia, New York: 1948
Hugo gallery, New York: 1949
Cowie galleries, Los Angeles: 1950, 1953, 1956
Hammer galleries, New York: 1952, 1954, 1956, 1959, 1961, 1964, 19663
Wally Findlay galleries, Chicago: 1959, 1961, 1962
Findlay Palm Beach, Florida: 1961, 1962
Manhattan galleries, Pasadena, California: 1961, 1963, 1966
Juarez gallery, Los Angeles: 1962, 1970
Venezuela
Acquavella, Caracas: 1964