(Florence 1888–1971 Meudon)
Pierres a la brique, 1931, signed; signed, titled and dated on the reverse, oil on canvas, 100 x 81 cm

Provenance:
Galerie Karl Flinker, Paris (label on the reverse)
Galleria Arte 92, Milan (label and stamp on the reverse)
European Private Collection

Exhibited:
Paris, Alberto Magnelli, Galerie Pierre, 1934
Saint-Étienne, Art Abstrait. Les premières générations (1910–1939), Musée d’Art et d’Industrie, 1957, exh. cat. no. 136, pl. 35, p. 65 (label on the reverse)
Nice, Magnelli. Les Pierres: 1931 – 1935, Galerie Sapone, 9 July – 30 September 1981
Florence, Omaggio a Magnelli, Sala d’Arme – Palazzo Vecchio, 14 September – 19 November 1988, exh. cat. p. 198, with. Ill.
Reggio Emilia, Correggio, Alberto Magnelli, Da Firenze a Parigi, Palazzo Magnani and Palazzo dei Principi, 16 December 2006 – 11 March 2007, exh. cat p. 32, no. 17, with ill.​​​​​​​

Literature:
A. Maisonnier (ed.), Catalogue Raisonné-L’œuvre peint, Societé Internationale d’Art XX siècle, Paris et Madame Susi Magnelli, 1975, p. 103, no. 382 with ill.

“The ‘Pierres’ (1931 – 1935) undoubtedly constitute the junction between ‘Imaginary Realism’ and pure abstraction. They retain the formal evidence of Realism in their volumetric and spatial sense and their descriptive tension; they anticipate the compositional articulation of abstraction.

And yet the ‘Pierres’ represents an autonomous and founding chapter in the Florentine master’s art. The choice of stones, on the one hand, derives from the bond with his land, with the quarries of Carrara in particular; on the other, it re-attracts attention to the objet inaugurated by the abstractionists themselves, by Léger, whom he had known since his first trips to Paris, and partly by the Dadaists.

Magnelli’s ‘Pierres’ have volume but do not seem to have weight, they do not seem to have ‘exploded’, rather they seem to be stuck in space, a space that is generally undeciphered (...) Even the indistinct background underlines a feeling of timelessness, of spatial indefiniteness …

G. Agnisola (ed.), Alberto Magnelli: Opere 1910–1970, Monte Carlo International Art, 2012, pp. 15-16