Stanley Whitney: The Italian Paintings

The enduring influence of Italy on Whitney’s sumptuous abstractions, from its ancient art and architecture to the meditative still lifes of Morandi

Stanley Whitney’s (born 1946) energetic parcels of color, ever-shifting grids and spatial intensity have been consolidated by over three decades of painting in Italy. It could not be more fitting, then, that Whitney opens an exhibition in the Venice Biennale 2022. Bringing together for the first time his acclaimed Italian Paintings, this publication, printed on the occasion of the artist’s presentation during the 2022 Venice Biennale, compiles works exclusively created in Italy and charts the evolution of his stacked, multihued compositions. It includes works dating to the early 1990s and Whitney’s formative period in Rome, where he would live for five years, to more recent paintings undertaken over summers spent in his studio near Parma. Alongside a selection of the Italian Paintings, the publication includes installation photography from the exhibition, pages from Whitney’s sketchbooks and essays by the exhibition’s cocurators, Vincenzo de Bellis and Cathleen Chaffee.