Lot number 152 - Auction 154
DIE ABSINTHTRINKERIN

ALBERTO SUGHI 1928 Cesena, Italy - 2012 Bologna, Italy THE ABSINTHE DRINKER Mixed media with oil and charcoal on canvas. 59.5 x 49.7 cm. Signed lower right 'SUGHI'. Inscribed on the stretcher on verso. Unframed. Provenance: Private collection in the Lower Rhine region. Alberto Sughi is considered an important representative of modern Italian painting in the second half of the 20th century. From the mid-1950s onwards, his works revealed a keen interest in depicting everyday social life, capturing the subtle, existential melancholy of city life and expressing it in scenes from cinemas, bars and waiting rooms. In his works, Sughi impressively addresses the increasing isolation and difficulties of interpersonal communication in the urban context of the post-war period. The work offered here, depicting a lonely absinthe drinker in a cool room, also embodies Enrico Crispolti's expression "existentialist realism" in Sughi's work and uses a bluish colour palette as a means of intensifying the atmosphere of loneliness, melancholy and isolation.