ORAZI

This article is about ORAZI. Not to be confused with Manuel Orazi.
ORAZI
ORAZI c. 1960
Born28 February 1906 (1906-02-28)
France
Died19 January 1979 (1979-01-20) (aged 72)
Movementnouvelle École de Paris

ORAZI (who wrote his name in capital letters), was born in 1906 and died in 1979. He was a painter of the French School (École Française), mentioned as a member of the School of Paris (École de Paris or nouvelle École de Paris).

He regularly participated in different artistic groups in Paris. His works evolved from figurative art to abstract art, which was often characterised by matter in relief rising from the canvas surface. He called this phase: Painture en Relief (Painting in Relief). He returned to figurative painting in his latest phase.[1]

In Paris, he set up his studio (his atelier) in Boulevard du Montparnasse since 1934. At time, the district of Montparnasse had replaced Montmartre as the artistic centre of Paris. After the Second World War, in 1946–1947, he moved to another atelier - in a quiet street of Montparnasse - and he maintained the same address until his death.

He steadily exhibited his works, for over three decades from 1947 until the year of his death, at the Salon de Mai, of which he became a “historic member”: this was the art association founded in Paris in 1943 (declared in 1944) in opposition to Nazi ideology, whose annual exhibitions were an important artistic event from 1945 onwards. In the introductory note to the 1979 Catalogue of the Salon de Mai, “La volonté de Continuer” (the will to continue), his death was remembered by Gaston Diehl, Founding President, with these words: “I care to remember those who have recently left us [...] and most especially two painters who were for so long faithful companions in our artistic path: ORAZI and BURTIN.”.[2]

In 1952 he was appointed member (Sociétaire), for the Painting Section, of the Salon d'Automne Society, the Parisian art institution founded in 1903 with the aim to encourage the development of the fine arts and organize the annual art exhibition the Salon d'Automne.[3]

Throughout his career, from 1932 until his death in 1979, he participated in a long series of exhibitions, including many solo exhibitions, mostly in Paris, but also elsewhere in France, Italy and Europe, America, and Japan. There have also been some solo exhibitions after his death, from 1980 to 2006.

Subsequently, in 2009, the American photographer and artist Peter Beard reproduced four paintings by ORAZI - from his Peintures en Relief (Paintings in Relief)[4] - in the Pirelli Calendar.[5]

The name he adopted along his artistic career was ORAZI (pron. ORASI'), deriving from the Roman antiquity and represented in the artistic field - since the 17th century - by a series of artists of the same family tree, active in France but who were originally from the Bologna area and central Italy.[6]

  1. ^ Bénézit, Emmanuel, Dictionnaire critique et documentaire des Peintres, Sculpteurs, Dessinateurs et Graveurs, Nouvelle édition, T. VIII, p. 27, Paris, Librairie Gründ, 1976; see also the voice ORAZI (Orazio) in Benezit Dictionary of Artists in Oxford Art Online www.oxfordartonline.com/public/book/oao_benz, which however modifies the French text introducing errors regarding the Artist's origin and year of death.
  2. ^ XXXVème Salon de Mai, Chapiteau de la Ville de Paris, Parvis de la Tour Montparnasse, 1979, Catalogue p. 3. In 1979 the Salon de Mai exhibited ORAZI’s work titled Portrait d'Hélène (portrait of Hélène): Catalogue n.109, painting reproduced on p. 20. The painting had been delivered to the Salon de Mai by ORAZI’s wife together with the French artist Édouard Pignon, one of his best friends. Hélène Parmelin was the wife of É. Pignon.
  3. ^ Le Comité de la Société du Salon d'Automne to ORAZI, on 16 April 1952 (document from the Artist's archives).
  4. ^ The pictures of these paintings are on line: http://www.painter-in-paris.com, Home Page.
  5. ^ These paintings have also been reproduced by the Russian journal 'Europa': Еврора - ВСЯ (Культ), Девушки и Элефанты. Круговорот Прекрасного В Ррироде. Фрагменты Издания Калелдаря Пирелли, Россия, February - March 2009, n.2, pp. 136-140 (by N. Werner, N. Huneke).
  6. ^ Among those artists, several had his same first name: Horace, Orazio, or Horatio. Bénézit, Emmanuel, Dictionnaire critique et documentaire des Peintres, Sculpteurs, Dessinateurs et Graveurs, Nouvelle édition, T. VIII, p. 27, Paris, Librairie Gründ, 1976; Benezit Dictionary of Artists in Oxford Art Online www.oxfordartonline.com/public/book/oao_benz.