Storia catalana, 1959

Santomaso’s pictorial history went through numerous phases: the still lifes from the 1940s; the synthetic, Post-Cubist paintings of the early postwar period, already well represented in the GAM collection by a significant work, Peschereccio (Fishing Boat), 1951; then, a bit later, the experience of Informel painting; and, finally, the late works, enveloped in a dusty light, broken only by a disembodied architectural division of the space.

Placed alongside one another, Peschereccio and the work acquired for the CRT Collection, Storia Catalana (Catalan Story), 1959, constitute a significant example of the painter’s two most important periods. [...]