A Private Geography

Francesco Clemente has a natural affinity for painting on paper, and his love of the book-based genres in the visual arts–manuscript painting, livres d’artistes collaborations and artist’s books–expresses itself in the fluency of his encounters with paper. Central to his oeuvre, Clemente’s works on paper have been the subject of numerous international retrospectives, from the Philadelphia Museum of Art’s 1991 touring show, to exhibits at the Pompidou and the Galleria d’Arte Moderna, Bologna (1999). A Private Geography brings us up to speed with the artist’s continued evolution of his familiar themes: love, the human figure, spirituality and its iconography. Created in four years across four continents, the 44 works utilize a range of media, from watercolor to ink to pastel. Motifs include Surrealist scenarios of birds sprouting from a dreamer’s head and images of lovers embracing.