Stanley Whitney’s Italian paintings reveal an art practice in transition
American abstract painter Stanley Whitney’s works from the 1990s to mid-2000s, made in Italy and now on display as a collateral event of the Venice Biennale 2022, show an evolution of form and colour

American abstract painter Stanley Whitney came to Rome in the early 1990s. The city had a huge impact on his life and his work as an artist, becoming a practice-altering source of inspiration and eventually a second home. This entanglement is now the subject of a new exhibition ‘Stanley Whitney: The Italian Paintings’, at Palazzo Tiepolo Passi in Venice, which opened alongside the 59th Venice Biennale. The show looks at some of the paintings Whitney made in Italy from the 1990s to the mid-2000s alongside his scrapbooks, giving a unique insight into his intuitive and dynamic practice.
‘It’s wonderful to see the paintings back in Italy where they were made. Being in Italy caused a shift in the colours I use – they became softer. It’s great to see these paintings in the Venetian light,’ Whitney says of the exhibition, which features his works alongside original fabric wallpaper and ornate rugs at Palazzo Tiepolo Passi.
The exhibition has the touchstone of three diptychs that have never been exhibited before and are utterly unique in Whitney’s practice. They mark an important change of direction for the artist. While the grid is visible, the strokes are still defined in a way that fades out of his painting as he moves into the 2000s.
The Italian Paintings’, exhibition view. Palazzo Tiepolo Passi, Venice, Italy. Until 27 November 2022.
‘They’re really transitional paintings,’ he says. ‘They were the first paintings I did when I moved to Italy from New York. Also, I never painted a diptych before that, or ever again, so they’re very unique. To show them for the first time in a 16th-century palazzo during the Venice Biennale is an incredible opportunity.’
The exhibition is co-curated by Cathleen Chaffee, chief curator of the Buffalo AKG Art Museum and Vincenzo de Bellis, curator and associate director at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. Once they had selected the works they wanted to include, they arranged some of these in an intuitive call and response, in which each selected work followed on from the other. The format is an homage to Whitney’s spontaneous and immediate ‘afternoon paintings’, completed over a few hours after time spent on the larger works.
‘The afternoon paintings and the larger works are part of the same process,’ says Whitney. ‘I do the afternoon paintings after I’ve finished the larger paintings. It’s sort of a way to calm down at the end of a painting day. The sketchbooks are like a diary, and seeing the sketchbooks that capture my time in Italy gathered together – notes from when my son was born, things I was thinking about during the summers – is very special.’
The Italian Paintings’, exhibition view. Palazzo Tiepolo Passi, Venice, Italy. Until 27 November 2022.
The Italian Paintings’, Exhibition view. Palazzo Tiepolo Passi, Venice, Italy. Until 27 November 2022.
These smaller, more spontaneous works and the notebooks were set in situ in a unique way by the curators, who took inspiration from Whitney’s practice, alternately choosing works in response to each other.
‘Stanley says, about this work, that [it is] painting as a call and response. Which is a musical kind of term, right? It's improvisation,’ says de Bellis. ‘We did it the same way. I picked one and Cathleen picked one and then the other one responded – it was very logical.’
Whitney’s use of colour, seen bathed in the Venetian light, is something to behold. As we spend time with these works, deeper layers and juxtapositions reveal themselves. We see a tighter use of form and more defined use of colour emerge over the years. We may assume that this shows a calming down for the artist as he gets older – but this is not the case.
‘I don’t think it’s about calmness, it’s about mature understanding,’ Whitney reveals. ‘As I got a better understanding of what colour is and what drawing is for me, I could do more with less. It’s a greater challenge for me to do more with less.’
The Italian Paintings’, exhibition view. Palazzo Tiepolo Passi, Venice, Italy. Until 27 November 2022.
Eden (Sunshine and Shadow), 2008.
Stanley Whitney, Pleasure or Joy, 1994.
INFORMATION
Stanley Whitney, ‘The Italian Paintings’, until 27 November 2022, Palazzo Tiepolo Passi, San Polo 2774, Venice. lissongallery.com
-
Volvo EX30 squeezes new materials and world-leading safety into a compact EV
The new Volvo EX30 is the smallest car in Volvo’s range. The full electric SUV provides a compelling mix of forward-thinking interior design with innovative materials and Google technology
By Jonathan Bell • Published
-
Jewellery artist Lucy Anderson charts a new path in minimalist wearable art
Lucy Anderson plays with abstract geometrical concepts for simple and elegant jewellery pieces
By Mazzi Odu • Published
-
A beachside home in the Dominican Republic is both private retreat and design destination
Arkina Architectural Design has created a vast beachside home for hire on the shores of the Caribbean, carved from concrete and set within a tropical garden
By Jonathan Bell • Published
-
The best London art exhibitions: a guide for this weekend
Your guide to the best London art exhibitions this weekend, as chosen by the Wallpaper* arts desk
By Harriet Lloyd Smith • Published
-
Art, science, and activism coalesce in ‘Thus waves come in pairs’ at Ocean Space, Venice
‘Thus waves come in pairs’, an exhibition of two new commissions at Ocean Space in Venice, features potent work by Simone Fattal, and artist duo Petrit Halilaj & Álvaro Urbano
By Will Jennings • Published
-
Fondazione Prada exhibition is an ode to a vanishing Venice
At Fondazione Prada’s 18th-century Venice palazzo, group exhibition ‘Everybody Talks About the Weather’ straddles beauty and fear and probes Venice’s precarious environmental future
By Will Jennings • Published
-
Alex Hartley’s eerie ode to Carlo Scarpa in Venice
Alex Hartley’s theatrical new installation ‘Closer than Before’ at Victoria Miro Venice is a haunting take on architectural destruction in Venice
By Thea Hawlin • Published
-
All eyes on Christina Quarles, the painter inventing a new figurative language
Los Angeles-based artist Christina Quarles is in her element, with two major solo shows underway at Hamburger Bahnhof and Hauser & Wirth Menorca
By Emily McDermott • Published
-
Raffaele Salvoldi stacks hundreds of marble blocks for dazzling Milan installation
For a Milan Design Week 2023 installation, Italian artist Raffaele Salvoldi teams up with marble brand Salvatori to create architectural sculptures comprising hundreds of marble blocks
By Harriet Lloyd-Smith • Published
-
Portraits of dogs: new Wallace Collection show is pooch perfect
‘Portraits of Dogs from Gainsborough to Hockney’ at the Wallace Collection (until 15 October) offers paws for thought on the human devotion to dogs throughout the centuries
By Harriet Lloyd-Smith • Published
-
Venice Biennale 2024: a guide to the artists announced so far
Keep up-to-date with our ongoing list of who’s representing who at the Venice Biennale 2024 – here's what we know so far
By Martha Elliott • Published