Enrico Donati


Enrico Donati was an Italian-American Surrealist painter and sculptor.

Life and work

Son of Federico Donati and Marianna Vita, nephew of Angelo Donati, born in Milan in 1909, Enrico Donati studied economics at the Università degli Studi, Pavia, and in 1934 moved to the USA, where he attended the New School for Social Research and the Art Students League of New York. His first one-man shows were in New York in 1942, at the New School for Social Research and the Passedoit Gallery. At this stage he was clearly drawn to Surrealism. This was reinforced by meeting André Breton and coming into contact with Marcel Duchamp and the other European Surrealists in New York at the time. A typical work of this period, St Elmo’s Fire, contains strange organic formations suggestive of underwater life.
Donati was one of the organizers of the Exposition Internationale du Surréalisme held in Paris in the summer of 1947, to which he contributed a painting and two sculptures. In the late 1940s he responded to the crisis in Surrealism by going through a Constructivist phase, from which he developed a calligraphic style and drew onto melted tar, or diluted paint with turpentine. He also became associated with Spatialism, founded by Lucio Fontana. Thus began his long fascination with surface and texture, including mixing paint with dust, that culminated in the 1950s in his Moonscapes, a series that has similarities with the work of Dubuffet. The fossil became a major theme for Donati through the 1960s, and he gave new importance to color in his Fossil works, for example in Red Yellow Fossil. In 1961, he was given a major retrospective at the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels and frequently exhibited at group shows in the USA and elsewhere. He held a number of important teaching and advisory posts, including visiting lecturer at Yale University.
Enrico Donati married Claire Javal of the important Javal family and had two daughters with her.

Death

Considered by some in the art world to be one of the last of the Surrealists, Enrico Donati died in his home in Manhattan on April 25, 2008, aged 99. Donati's health had been failing since involved, as a passenger, in a taxi accident in July 2007. He eventually succumbed to complications sustained from his injuries.

Museums and collections

Selected solo exhibitions

  • 2007, The Surreal World of Enrico Donati, de Young Museum, San Francisco
  • 2006, Weinstein Gallery, San Francisco, California
  • 2004, 2005 Gallerie Les yeux fertiles, Paris
  • 2000-04 Galerie Yoramgil, West Hollywood, California
  • 1998 Galerie Yoramgil, West Hollywood, California
  • 1997 Boca Raton Museum
  • 1995-97 Maxwell Davidson Gallery, New York
  • 1995-97 Horwitch Gallery, Scottsdale
  • 1986, 1989, 1991, 1992, 1993 Louis Newman Galleries, Beverly Hills
  • 1989 Galerie Zabriskie, Paris
  • 1987 Zabriskie Gallery, New York
  • 1985 Georges Fall, Paris
  • 1994, 1990 Carone Gallery, Fort Lauderdale
  • 1984, 1986, 1987 Gimpel & Weitzenhoffer, New York·1980 Grand Palais, FIAC, Paris
  • 1980 Palm Springs Desert Museum, Palm Springs
  • 1979 Osuna Gallery, Washington, D.C.
  • 1979 Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C.
  • 1950 Galleria del Milione, Milan 1950 Obelisco, Rome
  • 1950 Paul Rosenberg Gallery, New York
  • 1947 Galerie Drouant Gallery, Paris
  • 1947, 1958 Syracuse University, New York
  • 1945-47, 1949 Durand Ruel, New York
  • 1944, 1959 Chicago Arts Club, Chicago
  • 1944 G. Place Gallery, Washington, D.C.
  • 1942, 1944 Passedoit Gallery, New York
  • 1979 Norton Gallery, Palm Beach
  • 1978 Wildenstien Art Center, Houston
  • 1978 Davenport Municipal Art Gallery, Iowa
  • 1978 Hunter Museum of Art, Chattanooga
  • 1977 Fairweather Hardin Gallery, Chicago
  • 1977 Tennessee Fine Arts Center, Nashville
  • 1977 Chrysler Museum, Norfolk
  • 1977, 1979, 1982 Ankrum Gallery, Los Angeles
  • 1977 Minnesota Museum of Art, St. Paul
  • 1965 Obelisk Gallery, Washington, D.C.
  • 1964 Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge
  • 1964, 1966 J.L. Hudson Gallery, Detroit
  • 1962, 1963, 1966, 1968, 1970, 1972, 1974, 1976, 1980, 1982 Staempfli Gallery, New York
  • 1962 Neue Gallery, Munich
  • 1961 Palais des Beaux-Arts, Brussels
  • 1954, 1955, 1957, 1959, 1960 Betty Parsons Gallery, New York
  • 1953 Naviglio, Milan
  • 1952, 1953 Cavallino, Venice
  • 1952 Alexander Iolas Gallery, New York

Selected group exhibitions

Honors

  • 1954-56, 1963-64 Member of the Jury of Fulbright Scholarship Program
  • 1960, 1961, 1962 Visiting Lecturer at Yale University
  • 1962-72 Member of the Yale University Council for Arts and Architecture
  • 1970, 1972 Chairman National Committee, University Art Museum of California, Berkeley