Well, for me, a new discovery because I had never (knowingly) heard of this artist before but I popped down to the Estorick Collection near Highbury Corner to catch their exhibition before it closed.
Pericle was a Swiss-Italian painter and illustrator working mainly in Switzerland during the 1940s, 50s and up to the mid-60s when he abruptly withdrew from the art world and basically disappeared.
He was mainly self-taught and started off producing drawings for Punch magazine and his own illustrated books and comic strips, as well as paintings. His career as a painter does seem to have been a bit erratic as at the end of the 1950s he seems to have destroyed all but one of his figurative paintings and set off on a different, abstract course, producing most of the paintings shown in exhibition. He was inspired by spiritual and esoteric ideas found in astrology and theosophy. I do like the bold strokes and the obvious texture in the paint. I particularly like his paintings that look like various planks of wood fitted together.
After he stopped painting in 1965, his work fell pretty well into obscurity and he died in 2001. His old house in Basel was purchased in 2016 and a treasure trove of his work was discovered there.
It’s a fascinating story and I’m glad that I got to see the exhibition. Discovering a new (to me) artist whose work I quite like is always fun.
moose and hobbes 