2020 Lorenzo Bonechi

Galleria Il Ponte is dedicating a solo show to Lorenzo Bonechi, bringing together some large paintings, drawings, a sculpture and a set of the finest tempera paintings to sum up the artist’s brief creative career. In 1994, at the age of 39, his career was cut short at its height, after the great exhibition at Sperone Westwater in New York and the invitation to the XLVI Biennale of Venice the following year.
“Lorenzo Bonechi is a quirky poet, a wayfarer in a Tuscany that is closer to Sassetta and Sienese gothic delicacy. However, he does not seek forefathers, he is totally propelled towards dreaming a future of hope, overturning the checkmate of De Chirico’s Metaphysics and if anything drawing from Savinio’s convictions.
His tall, spindly figures endlessly spin a brightly variable style, light as a feather, which winds back up into mounds like sheaves, clouds and domes of hay, or curved slopes with rocking chairs, impressing a gentle movement on the long, slim balance of the composition. His topic is a whispered encounter between man and nature, in which light dominates and mediates a shared essence of animation and poetry. Almost imperceptible commotion rustles up halftones and quavering shadows, in a priestly silence that condenses a feeling of expectation.” (Maurizio Calvesi, Lorenzo Bonechi, 1955-1994, Pittura di luce, Aska publisher, Florence, 2005).