ORENDA ART INTERNATIONAL

ͤ
The profile of the publisher and art writer Gualtieri di San Lazzaro (Catania 1904 – Paris 1974, fig. 1) has for a long time been uncertain, above all entrusted to scanty and often imprecise biographical data, which made him an elusive figure. The documents which since 2009 make up the Gualtieri di San Lazzaro and Maria Papa Fund at APICE of the Università degli Studi di Milano, established by his stepson Nicolas Rostkowski, now contribute, together with a systematic revision of the bibliography, to shed light upon him and his role as a ‘pivotal’ figure in the artistic relations between Italy and France. The layout of a more complex biography than what was previously imagined regarding his activity as a publisher and writer has emerged, above all regarding the period following the Second World War and, in particular, from a year which revealed itself as crucial in his journey: 1951.

However, before that date, San Lazzaro already had established a long career with two stories appearing prior in a Roman newspaper: Anton Giulio Bragaglia’s Croniche d’attualità in 1921. It is in 1924, with his move from Rome to Paris, that there is the first turning point in San Lazzaro’s life: here in fact Leopold Zborowsky, Modigliani’s merchant, entrusts him with the editing of a new magazine which, paying homage to Bragaglia, takes the name Croniques du jour. With this name, in the twenty years that follow, San Lazzaro will give the start to a new series of monographs, which will be crowned in 1938 by a new magazine, XXe Siècle. It was a large-format publication, exclusively dedicated to the latest tendencies in contemporary art, complete with original lithographs which made the magazine, in addition to being an instrument of communication, an object destined to collecting. Only four issues came out between 1938 and 1939 followed by a long interruption until 1951.

In the meantime, San Lazzaro periodically sends society articles about Parisian life during the war to Gazzetta del Popolo, and continues to write them until 1943, the year of his temporary return to Rome. His Roman stay, which extended to 1949, marks San Lazzaro’s literary beginnings and he, after the first trials published by Bragaglia, dedicates himself fully to journalism and, in parallel, to publishing. After a guide of Rome for American soldiers, he publishes Cinquant’anni di pittura moderna in Francia , followed quickly in the following years by his first two literary operas. In 1947, on invitation of Orio Vergani, San Lazzaro collected the Parisian news in Parigi era morta. The following year, still in a Garzanti series edited by Vergani, the first edition of his most significant work, the autobiographical story Parigi era viva (fig. 2), a chronicle of Parisian artistic life from 1924 to the arrival of German troupes in Paris, comes out. It is a story told by a witness who, as he himself says, preferred collecting more friendships than artists’ operas.

These three publications, together with the direction of Espresso, the afternoon edition of the Roman newspaper Il Tempo, would make us think that in the life of San Lazzaro there was a definitive move in favour of literary and journalistic activities. However, in 1949 he returns to Paris and two years later gives life to a new series of the magazine XXe Siècle (fig. 3 and 4), modernised in terms of graphics, but directed under the same formula defined in 1938. From here on, San Lazzaro’s life will be divided between writing and the promotion of contemporary art, conducted above all through the magazine, which in 1959, will be joined by a gallery of the same name. It is precisely the context of this magazine which allows San Lazzaro to keep constant contact with Italy, taking on a true role as mediator between the French and Italian artistic environments. His major efforts, in fact, will not only be that of making Italian art more known through XXe Siècle or through art criticism, but also that of moving the art works, creating occasions for unedited exhibitions both in Italy and France. The intention was to promote these artists in which he believed most and, as Giuseppe Marchiori has underlined: ‘La sua era un’azione critica e affettiva insieme, basata sull’impegno morale e perseguita sino al raggiungimento della notorietà, con fedele costanza, poiché ogni scelta era motivate e confermata soltanto dopo una lunga serie di confronti e di esami. […] Fra i molti artisti italiani, le scelte del cuore erano per Marino e Magnelli […]. Marini da Milano e Magnelli da Meudon, guardavano al piccolo, taciturno siciliano come a un amico fedele, a un uomo che non lasciava perdere una sola occasione per scrivere o far scrivere di loro e per esporne le opere’.

In that crucial 1951, which saw the fortunes of San Lazzaro the art publisher reborn, his relations with Italy were intensified, in fact thanks to the direction of the magazine, he is able to construct a network of contacts with artists, galleries and collectors and establishes his role as a ‘pivot’ between Italy and France, becoming a reference point for Italian artists who looked to Paris and for collectors who looked for works from the other side of the Alps. From this perspective the close collaboration with the gallery owner Carlo Cardazzo (Venice 1908 - Pavia 1963), met at the beginning of the fifties is inserted. In 1946 he paired his Venetian gallery the Cavallino with the Milanese Galleria del Naviglio, managed together with his companion, the writer Milena Milani. At that time, Cardazzo was one of the gallery owners who showed more openness towards the latest art tendencies, not only for Europe, but also international in the widest sense of the term. He was in fact among the first, knowing his friendship with Peggy Guggenheim (who went to live in Venice in 1948), to host American Action Painting in his own galleries, even if he did not side with a particular artistic tendency and on the walls of his gallery the operas of Italian masters of the mid-1800s were alternated, from Campigli to de Chirico and De Pisis, to those of the French Informel or of Spatialism. All this went hand in hand with the exclusive promotion of Scanvino, Capogrossi and probably also Lucio Fontana, even if documentary proof is lacking. Cardazzo tried to seize novelty, to make himself the promoter and have control of the entire market.

Such openness of interest was possible only thanks to a branched network of international relations, among these that with San Lazzaro, which guaranteed different contacts with the most advance Parisian environments. Not only will the Galleria del Cavallino be the Italian distributor of XXe Siècle between 1951 and 52, but the publisher and gallery owner will come to an agreement to construct a true axis of exchange between Italy and France. The magazine allowed for a wider diffusion of Italian artists (Capogrossi and Fontana in particular), promoted by Cardazzo, who in turn was interested in exhibiting French artists, or more often foreigners living in Paris, in his gallery. When San Lazzaro inaugurates his own gallery in rue des Canettes, the exchnges intensify and broaden.

It is thanks to San Lazzzaro that Cardazzo will be able to exhibit at the Naviglio in 1951 and at the Cavallino in 1952 the first two Italian retrospectives of the graphic works of Kandinsky (fig. 5), a sign of the intention of the gallery owner to have exhibitions which reflected the proposals of international shows: in fact, it is worth noting how the two exhibitions took place soon after an entire hall was dedicated to the Russian painter at the XXV Biennale di Venezia (1950), where Cardazzo organised the Book Pavilion, an operation which gave him prestige and contacts.

Since 1930, the year of their meeting, a long fellowship had linked San Lazzaro and Kandinsky who, supporting the birth of XXe Siècle, played an important role in his publishing career. After the passing of the Russian master in 1944, the Sicilian writer kept close relations with his widow, such that the sculptor Marino Marini suggested he marry her, thus resolving the continual economic problems caused mostly by the running of the magazine. Beyond the colourful anecdote, San Lazzaro was close enough to Nina Kandinsky to perform the role of mediator in the organisation of the exhibitions at Cardazzo's galleries, wile, in occasion of the exhibition at the Cavallino, he signs the brief presentation on the catalogue-invitation. ‘La sua arte, nata dalla terra’, he writes, ‘diventa così interamente aerea. Per caratterizzare l'evoluzione di Kandinsky sarebbe più giusto dire che è andata “dal materiale allo spirituale” invece che dal figurativo al concreto”, perché questi termini non hanno che un significato polemico, mentre l'opera di Kandinsky si situa completamente ben al di là della polemica, nel puro clima spirituale che raggiungono solo i più grandi’.

San Lazzaro will be able to think about making the most of his own talents as mediator also in 1955, in relation to the sale of the curtain that Pablo Picasso had realised in Rome for Parade, the ballet written by Jean Cocteau and set to music by Erik Satie, which débuted in Paris in 1917. The story is not unpublished, even if the dynamic seems confused without the support of what San Lazzaro himself wrote in the second edition of Parigi era viva, and above all by the documents of the recently born archive. Cardazzo had in fact recovered the curtain, according to recent hypothesis, which was at La Scala, after having reached Milan in occasion of the great exhibition that, in 1953, Italy had dedicated to the master of Guernica. Nevertheless, given that this does not appear among those operas exhibited at Rome, nor those at Palazzo Reale in Milan, it seems plausible what Milena Milani remembers, even if it is not documented. Milani, says in fact that Cardazzo, recovered the curtain from a collector, offering it first to La Scala and after to the French museums. In regards to this, San Lazzaro, in the second edition of Parigi era viva (fig. 6), writes:

Cardazzo […] aveva ritrovato, a Milano, il sipario di Parade, dodici metri di altezza per sei o sette di larghezza, di cui il proprietario, un argentino, si proponeva di ritagliare e di conservare solo il pannello centrale, non avendo nessuna intenzione di costruire un palazzo per poterlo esporre intero. Silvio s’era affrettato ad avvertire Kahnweiler. Pensava che Picasso sarebbe stato contento di riaverlo, in cambio di una tela di modeste proporzioni, che l’argentino non avrebbe certo rifiutata. Ma il Kahnweiler, ancora una volta, fu di parere contrario: ‘Picasso se ne frega’, disse ‘voi lo conoscete’. Se Silvio l’avesse conosciuto come lo conosceva il suo mercante, quell’idea, evidentemente, l’avrebbe subito scartata. Picasso poteva fregarsene, ma Silvio sentiva il dovere di salvare dalla distruzione uno dei più gloriosi cimeli dei Balletti russi. […] L’argentino, intanto, al quale Cardazzo aveva scritto, aveva fatto sapere di essere disposto a venderlo per una somma che, pur non essendo eccessiva, era tuttavia troppo alta per i poveri musei di Francia. Silvio, che non s’era ancora rimesso dall’ultima tremenda operazione, era, allora, da sei mesi, degente in una clinica della riviera ligure. Si mise in contatto con il signor Lloyd, acquirente, allora, di opere d’arte per i musei del Regno Unito e del Commonwealth britannico; il signor Lloyd venne a Milano, vide il sipario, ma con profondo rincrescimento, sostenne che non esisteva una galleria pubblica abbastanza grande per esporlo. Disperato, come se si trattasse di salvare una vita umana, Silvio scrisse a Pierre Courthion pregandolo di esporre la situazione al conservatore Jean Cassou. Qualche tempo dopo, a Milano, una fredda e nevosa mattina di marzo, Silvio s’incontrava con Bernard Dorival. Cardazzo ottenne dalla ‘Scala’, per la seconda volta, il favore di issare il sipario sulla scena del grande teatro milanese, per poterlo mostrare al giovane conservatore del museo Nazionale di Parigi. Il giorno dopo, l’immenso telone veniva spedito in Francia per essere sottoposto alla commissione del Louvre. Era già arrivato, quando un telegramma di Rockefeller, dall’America, lo chiedeva, a qualsiasi prezzo, per il Modern Art Museum di New York. Ai primi di giugno, Silvio poté finalmente rientrare a Parigi. «Dove pensate di metterlo?» chiese a un funzionario del museo, che incontrò alla vernice di una mostra. ‘L’essenziale’, disse il funzionario ‘è di averlo assicurato alla Francia. Jean Cassou si propone del resto di ringraziarvi ‘ufficialmente’ per la vostra tempestiva segnalazione’. Anni dopo, Silvio rivide il sipario di Parade a Londra, alla grande retrospettiva di Picasso ordinata da Roland Penrose alla Tate Gallery. E ricordò il rammarico, apparentemente sincero, del signor Lloyd, quando aveva affermato che non c’era nel Regno Unito e nel Commonwealth un museo abbastanza grande per esporlo. Ma di tutto ciò, con Picasso, che se ne fregava, non aveva mai parlato.

Some documents preserved at APICE allow us to reconstruct the chronology of events narrated by San Lazzaro, beginning with a letter to Cardazzo of 20 January 1955 from the director-founder of Paris's Musée national d'Art moderne, Jean Cassou, who had just had a meeting with his colleague, Bernard Dorival, the conservator adjoint at the museum since 1941. From the letter we gather how the two, even without having yet seen the curtain, are interested in acquiring it. The same day, Cassou, in the meantime updated on the question also by the critic Pierre Courthion, writes to San Lazzaro to have more information. Only three days later, on 24 January 1955, from Milan the gallery owner writes in turn to San Lazzaro, informing him that his commission for the sale would be two million, but, however, he does not specify his own commission let alone the entire cost of the opera. At this point, after mid-February Bernard Dorival comes to Milan to see the curtain, installed, as is read in Parigi era viva, on the stage of La Scala. Surely San Lazzaro, in that moment impatient at the Villa Elios di Alassio, will not be present at the meeting between Cardazzo and the French official, a meeting that will determine the curtain's departure at the beginning of April for France, where it will arrive almost a month later. The story therefore must have a period of deadlock if, still on 4 July 1955, Cardazzo informs San Lazzaro that, upon payment by the French institution, the compensation for his intermediation would have been 1,200,000 lire, a sum that the gallery owner would have written off from his own commission, however, in the case of a reduction of the percentage of Cardazzo by the owner of the opera, San Lazzaro would have expected only one million. If still on 22 July 1955 San Lazzaro goes to Pierre Courthion to press for a solution, the story, at least according to the novel, will soon have its epilogue.

The collaboration between San Lazzaro and Cardazzo was also nurtured during holidays in Albisola, where, as Milena Milani says, the Parisian publisher arrived for the first time in 1956, when the Ligurian city was in its heyday. In Albisola, the studio of Tullio Mazzotti, with whom San Lazzaro was destined to form a strong friendship, is an unavoidable reference point. Among those who made appointments to work in the kilns, were the foreigners Asger Jorn and Wilfredo Lan, who passed most of the year there, Aligi Sassu and Piero Manzoni, and the artists of the Naviglio: Giuseppe Capogrossi, Emilio Scanalino and Lucio Fontana, with the birth of his first Nature, baked in the kilns of the CEAS (1959). San Lazzaro was also there. Despite the creative fervour, the atmosphere of Albisola was of a relaxed vacation, with parties – like that given by Cardazzo on 8 August 1959, on the theme of the Invasione dei Turchi, which saw among the many guests, Capogrossi, Fontana, Lam and Agenore Fabbri, also San Lazzaro – and cafè breaks. Milena Milani says that it was at Bar Testa that the winter exhibitions where planned out, and where the Sicilian writer was often present. Among these it is worth noting the exhibitions of Henry Michaux at the Galleria Selecta and of Sonia Delaunay at the Cavallino (fig. 7) both in 1956, presented by San Lazzaro, and for the following year those of Jean Arp at the Cavallino and Galleria Selecta in Rome. Sonia Delaunay and Arp, for different reasons are both connected to the personal events of San Lazzaro: for example Arp (Strasbourg 1887 – Basilea 1966) is responsible for one of the winning ideas of XXe Siècle, that of inserting original lithographs in the magazine. The stories and memories of Sonia Terk Delaunay (Hrakyz'k 1885 – Paris 1979) and her husband Robert instead are a basso continuo (and at times a touchstone) to the book that, some years later, San Lazzaro will write about Paul Klee. Therefore, the artists that Cardazzo asks San Lazzaro to bring to the Naviglio and the Cavallino are generally those who are closest to him, not only professionally, but also personally. Such cases produce the best results in their collaborations.

Cardazzo's galleries act as a trampoline also for another of San Lazzaro's fraternal friends, Serge Poliakoff, presented for the first time in Italy at the Naviglio in 1957 (fig. 8), and at the Cavallino in Venice and the Selecta in Rome the following year, just when San Lazzaro asked the Russian painter to be the best man at his wedding to the Polish artist Maria (Papa) Rostkowska (Brwinow 1923 – Pietrasanta 2008). Just as Capogrossi and Lucio Fontana will be the Italians to whom San Lazzaro gives most attention in France, so Poliakoff is probably the artist that he works most at to promote in Italy. San Lazzaro with Poliakoff begins to work himself concretely only after Poliakoff was able to cancel an unfavourable contract drawn up with Sami Tarica (Smirne 1906-?), the gallery owner who had begun his career as a carpet merchant and who, as we will soon see, often hampers Cardazzo's work. From the first exhibition of Poliakoff at the Naviglio (13-22 April 1957) sales were going quite well, so much so that on 29 April 1957, Cardazzo satisfied told San Lazzaro that he sold in Milan ‘ancora due quadri di Poliakoff’ and later on 1 December 1958, he again wrote ‘la mostra di Poliakoff [alla Galleria Selecta] si è chiusa il 26 Novembre. Ha avuto molto successo, nonostante la super-campagna contro Poliakoff che è venuto a fare a Milano personalmente il mercante di tappeti Tarica. È andato da tutti I collezionisti a dire cha Poliakoff è finito, che a Parigi si trova per molto meno, ecc. Indubbiamente questo mi ha danneggiato nelle vendite’. Among the operas sold there was also the gouache painting bought by Gianni Mattioli, who suddenly – the letter is dated 24 August 1959 in Milan – directly informed San Lazzaro.

The projects of the duo Cardazzo-San Lazzaro did not always have favourable results. In November 1957 for example, Cardazzo, taking advantage yet again of the relationship San Lazzaro had with Nina Kandinsky, planned a new exhibition of gouache paintings by the Russian painter. Of this project only a letter remains dated 12 November of that year: ‘Le chiedevo’, writes Cardazzo, ‘se era possibile organizzare a Milano, Venezia e Roma una mostra di guazzi di Kandinsky. Pensavo che la cosa potrebbe interessare Madame Kandinsky perché, venendo in Italia potrebbe essere ricevuta in udienza privata dal Santo Padre. Spero che M.me Kandinsky non sia protestante!’.

It is the same thing, also in 1957, for an exhibition of Jean Fautrier (Paris 1898-1964), substituted at the last minute, and anticipating an exhibition of paintings by Jean-Michel Atlan (Costantina 1913 – Paris 1960), an Algerian living in Paris, contacted through San Lazzaro. The idea of exhibiting Fautrier, still little known here, - was due, together with Hans Hartung, only to the Biennale in 1960 – re-entering perfectly in Cardazzo's logic, who was always wanting to be the first to propose new things to the Italian public. San Lazzaro is still the intermediary between the gallery owner and Fautrier, even if the relationss resulted difficult and complex, leading a few years later to open hostility. Once again Sami Tarica, representative in addition to Poliakoff, also of Fautrier, is not estranged to the situation. According to Tarica's side of the story, in 1958, San Lazzaro as French agent of the Naviglio had asked him to agree to the exhibition if the Milanese gallery was given the exclusive rights to the works of Fautrier in Italy. Only later would Cardazzo go to Paris, where, ‘visibilement, les oevres d'un peintre inconnu du marché le laissent indifférent et ne sembliaent pas l'èmouvoir’. It is from this point that the owner of the Milanese gallery Apollinaire, Guido Le Noci (1904-1983), who with his modest ways and sincere enthusiams, moves Tarica, persuading him to give him the exclusive rights to Fautrier in Italy. Different and more correct – attested by the correspondence – is the version of the facts given by San Lazzaro in 1962. His letter of 19 December 1962 to Jacques Gambier de Laforterie, his lawyer in the case brought against him by Fautrier in 1961, precise as in 1957 San Lazzaro, upon the request of Tarica and Fautrier, had proposed to Cardazzo to set up the exhibition of the painter, who furthermore committed himself to giving San Lazzaro a 5% commission of sales. Upon accepting the agreement, Cardazzo will keep his side of the agreement even after, when the painter claimed ‘guarantee of sale’ on some works. Shortly thereafter, however, Fautrier entrusted the sale of his gouache paintings to the Galleria Apollinaire with a separate agreement without pre-emptively informing Cardazzo. On 22 November 1957, Cardazzo writes to Fautrier:

Illustre Maestro, ho ricevuto la Sua lettera del 15 novembre. Mi dispiace molto di non poter avere anche l’esclusività dei suoi ‘guazzi’ per l’Italia, poiché il mio lavoro sarebbe stato più completo. Lei mi dice di avere preso altre disposizioni per i ‘guazzi’ per il periodo di un anno. Le sarei grato se potesse informarmi sul nome di chi ha avuto l’esclusività. Io confermo la mia lettera dell’11 novembre relativa all’esclusività per l’Italia dei Suoi dipinti e pregherò il signor San Lazzaro di essere mio intermediario con il signor Larcade poiché purtroppo non posso ancora mettermi in viaggio per Parigi essendo convalescente di ‘grippe’. Per quanto Lei mi dice sul fatto di essere presentato nelle mie gallerie come un artista di primo piano, sono perfettamente d’accordo. Da vari anni seguo, stimo e ammiro profondamente il Suo lavoro e se non è avvenuto ancora un incontro fra noi, sono certo che appena avverrà Lei potrà rendersi conto personalmente dei miei sentimenti a Suo riguardo […].

San Lazzaro tells that all this had made new agreements necessary: the two galleries would both present the works of Fautrier: Cardazzo the paintings and Le Noci the gouache works, but the second, suddenly deciding to anticipate his exhibition by a month or two, presenting the catalogue at the Galleria Apollinaire as the first to discover the French painter caused Cardazzo to abandon the exhibition and the exclusive of the painter. However, it is necessary at this point also to notice a certain ambiguity in the relations between San Lazzaro and Le Noci: in the catalogue of the exhibition at the Apollinaire, for example, in addition to a text by André Malraux – taken from the catalogue of the exhibition at the Galerie Drouin in 1945 – and one by Herbert Read – the introduction of the exhibition of at the I.C.A. In London in June 1958 – there are also two texts by Jean Paulhan, one of which, entitled Grandeur de Fautrier, is an ‘estratto di un articolo di Paulhan che apparirà nel n. 11 della rivista XXe Siècle’. It is also significant that in March 1959 San Lazzaro will write a text for an exhibition of works of another of his friends, the poet André Verdet, set up by the Galleria Apollinaire.

The relationship between Cardazzo and San Lazzaro seems to be strengthened in the summer of 1959, when San Lazzaro decides to open his own gallery in Paris at 14 Rue des Canettes, just a few short steps from the Saint-Suplice Church – and with the same name as the magazine XXe Siècle. Before taking this step, San Lazzaro had consulted his friend, who supported the endeavour, proposing also to collaborate on it. Cardazzo does not let an opportunity slide to promote the artists he works with in Paris. From the quick succession of letters between the two, the intention of San Lazzaro, as beneficiary of a particularly favourable moment, to open a Milan office surfaces and he asks once again for the help of Cardazzo, who searches for an space suitable for his friend's needs. Of this idea of San Lazzaro's, however, there is no further documentation: most likely this project, which was symptomatic of the intention to widen affairs in Italy opening his own space, must have been abandoned at its birth. In fact, for all Italian questions, San Lazzaro will continue to refer to the Galleria del Naviglio, even in the years following Cardazzo's death.

The fact that San Lazzaro had opened his own gallery in Paris, however, partly changed the collaborative dynamic between the two. Now, in fact, San Lazzaro has a way to host exhibitions in his own site, and can propose to the Naviglio the same artists who he had exhibited in Rue des Canettes. If up until that moment San Lazzaro had limited himself to being the intermediary between the galleries of the Naviglio and the artists that Cardazzo intended to bring to Italy, now he could have a proactive role and, at the same time, host artists handled by the Milanese gallery, as in the cases of the exhibitions of Capogrossi in 1962 and Fontana in 1965.

In this new context some exhibitions will take place in close time in Paris and Milan, like those of the Brazilian painter Krajcberg or of Eastern European artists like Natalia Dumitresco and Maria Papa Rostkowska, who débuts at the Naviglio in 1960. In this last group of exhibitions, moreover, the central thread that stands out is that San Lazzzaro had a way to organise in Rue des Canettes an important group exhibition dedicated to relief, which will be realised in a first edition 1960 and a second in 1962. The theme of the exhibition was a technique, or better a tendency, of contemporary art towards breaking down the dichotomy between painting and sculpture, thanks to the introduction of a new relationship with the material, playing on the variations of the surface. A broad category, therefore, diachronic and transversal to different currents, able to include many works of Delaunay, Pevsner or of other representatives of the historical avant-garde, Fontana and Capogrossi, like the lacerations in metal of César, or the researches on the surface, like those of Krajcberg or of Maria Papa. In a certain sense, the exhibitions of the XXe Siècle gallery exported in Italy are coherent with certain prior choices of San Lazzaro. The exhibition dedicated to Arp was in fact an exhibition of ‘reliefs’, and the Dada artist also appears in the two collections of Relief presented in Paris.

We now come towards the conclusion of the San Lazzaro-Cardazzo relationshp: on 16 November 1963, in fact, Cardazzo, at the age of fifty-eight, dies at the hospital in Pavia. It is an event which leaves a good part of the artistic and intellectual environments of Italy dazed. Raffaele Carrieri, connected to San Lazzaro since the thirties, writes a sad (undated) letter, which surely immediately followed the death of their common friend: ‘Ho i nervi a pezzi, la giornata al Policlinico di Pavia, il viaggio a Venezia con Milena [Milani] per partecipare ai funerali (la moglie di Carlo teneva compagnia ai vecchi genitori affranti di Cardazzo). Al cimitero, oltre ai figli, Milena e Renato [Cardazzo]. C’eravamo noi, gli amici. È arrivato da Parigi anche Campigli. Non so dirti altro. Tu eri presente in mezzo a noi sempre!’

San Lazzaro timely expresses his profound grief in an editorial in XXe Siècle concluding:

Pour nous, qui fûmes ses amis, rien ne pourra remplacer sa présence. Nous ne connaissions pourtant de lui que son masque, car qui peut prétendre avoir vu son visage? Ce masque nous cachait aussi bien sa profonde timidité que sa ruse, et faisait de lui un étonnant personage: même lorsque le souvenir de l’homme sera effacé, il vivra dans le panthéon de notre mémoire aussi longtemps que ceux qu’y gravèrent l’histoire et les chefs-d’œuvre du roman de jadis.

The death of Carlo will not stop the relations of San Lazzaro with the Galleria del Naviglio. Instead these continue until the death of the writer in 1974 thanks to Renato Cardazzo, who substitutes his brother in the management of the galleries.

Real name Giuseppe Antonio Leandro Papa, Gualtieri di San Lazzaro was born in Catanaia on 29 January 1904 and died in Paris on 8 September 1974. On him see: L.P. Nicoletti, Gualtieri di San Lazzaro (1904-1974), scrittore, editore e critico d'arte. Traccia per un profilo biografico, Laurea Magistrale Thesis (Univesrità degli Studi di Milano, A.A. 2008-2009) advisor Prof. P. Rusconi, co-advisor Prof,. S. Bignami.

For more on this subject see the article by R. Proserpio in issue 7 of L'Uomo Nero, currently being printed.

G. di San Lazzaro, Cinquant'anni di pittura moderna in Francia, Rome, Danesi, 1945.

Idem, Parigi era morta, Milan, Garzanti, 1947.

Idem, Parigi era viva, Milan, Garzanti, 1948. San Lazzaro wrote a second edition of this novel, which received the Bagutta Opera Prima Prize in 1949. The second edition, notably widened, was published by Mondadori in 1966. The second edition of 1966 is being prepared with a re-edited commentary my myself for the Edizioni Polistampa of Florence.

Cfr. Idem, L'aglio e la rosa, Milan, Edizioni del Naviglio, 1971, dust jacket blurb.

G. Marchiori, San Lazzaro ed les artistes italiens, in San Lazzaro et ses amis, Paris, XXe Siècle, 1975, p. 110. An Italian translation of this article, from which this quote comes, is conserved in an ‘erratic’ copy at the Fondo San Lazzaro. ‘his critical and emotional reaction together, based on moral commitment and pursued until reaching notoriety, with faithful constancy, because every decision was motivated and confirmed only after a long series of comparisons and examinations. […] Among the many Italian artists, the most heart-felt choices were Marino and Magnelli […]. Marino from Milan and Magnelli from Meudon, looked at the little, taciturn Sicilian as a faithful friend, as a man who didn’t let a single occasion slide to write something and have something written about them and to exhibit their operas’.

The writer, Milena Milani, affirms to have met San Lazzaro in 1952, in occasion of the publication of the French translation of her novel, Storia di Anna Drei, and to have then introduced San Lazzaro to her companion Carlo Cardazzo (cfr. Milena Milani, San Lazzaro ed le mythe d'Albisola, in San Lazzaro et ses amis, cit., p. 121; a slightly different version is in S. Poggi, Intervista a Milena Milani, in Eadem, Milena Milani. Albisola amore,, Milano, Viennepierre, 2005, p. 152). Milani, however, gives yet a further version, declaring that it was San Lazzaro who introduced them in 1950 (cfr. M. Milani, L'angelo nero e altri ricordi, Milan, Rusconi, 1984, p. 72).

On this see G. di San Lazzaro, Riconoscimeto, in Gualtieri di San Lazzaro, Un inverno a Parigi e Raffaele Carrieri, Sera italiana di Gentilini, Milan, Galleria del Naviglio, 1968.

M. Marini, Con Marino, Milan, Bompiani, 1991, p. 77.

Opera grafica di Wassily Kandinsky, Venice, Galleria del Cavallino, 6-19 September 1952. For this occasion, San Lazzaro writes a brief text of presentation for the invitation, in which he develops considerations regarding the production of the Russian artist during his youth made in Lettera da Parigi for the Luigi Moretti's periodical Spazio (G. di San Lazzaro, Lettera da Parigi, Spazio, III, 6, December 1951-April 1952, pp. 99-101). On this exhibition and the relationship between San Lazzaro and Cardazzo, there are some references in L.M. Barbero and F. Pola, Una “centrale creativa” a Milano. La Galleria del Naviglio di Carlo Cardazzo. 1946-1963, in Carlo Cardazzo, catalogue of the exhibition (Venice, Peggy Guggenheim Foundation, 2008) edited by L.M. Barbero, Milan, Electa, 2008, pp. 174-175; see also G. Bianchi, Il Cavallino, “vibrante centro veneziano di arte moderna”, Ivi., p. 142. ‘His art, born from the earth becomes something completely eterea. To characterise the evolution of Kandinsky it would be correct to say that he has gone “from material to spiritual” instead of “from figurative to concrete”, because these terms do not have the polemic significance, while Kandinsky’s operas are completely beyond controversy, iin the pure spiritual climate that only the great reach’.

This is briefly spoken of in L.M. Barbaro and F. Pola, Una “centrale creativa” a Milano, cit., p. 183 note 11.

Ibidem.

G. di San Lazzaro, Parigi era viva, Milan, Mondadori, 1966, p. 289-291. ‘Cardazzo […] had refound in Milan the curtain of Parade, twelve metres high by six or seven wide, whose owner, an Argentine, wanted to cut it or only save a small central panel, not having the intention to construct a building to be able to display it. Silvio quickly informed Kahnweiler. He thought that Picasso would have been happy to have it again, in exchange for a canvas of more modest proportions, that the Argentine would not have refused. But Kahnweiler, once again, was of a different opinion: “Picasso doesn’t care”, he said, “you know him”. If Silvio knew him like his merchant did, that idea, evidently, would have been tossed right away. Picasso might not care, but Silvia felt the pain of needing to save one of the most glorious relics of Russian ballet from destruction. […] In the meantime, the Argentine, to whom Cardazzo had written, made it known that he was willing to sell for a sum, even if not excessive, was too much for the poor French museums. Silvio, who hadn’t recovered from the last of the tremendous operations, was for the past six months, bed-ridden in a clinic on the Ligurian Riviera. He contacted Lloyd, then a buyer of art for British museums who came to Milan, saw the curtain, but who said with sadness that there wasn’t a public gallery big enough to display it. Desperate, as if he had to save a human life, Silvio wrote to Pierre Courthion begging him to explain the situation to the curator Jean Cassou. Some time later, in Milan, a cold and nervous March morning, Silvio met Bernard Dorival. Cardazzo obtained from La Scala, for the second time, the favour of hanging the curtain on the stage of the great Milanese theatre, to be able to display it to the young curator of the National Museum of Paris. The next day, the immense canvas was sent to France to be shown to the commission of the Louvre. It had already arrived when a telegram from Rockefeller, from America, asked him how much it was for the Modern Art Museum of New York. At the beginning of June, Silvio finally could return to Paris. “Where do you plan on putting it?”, he asked a Museum official who he met at the inauguration of an exhibition. “The important thing”, he replied, “is that we have secured it for France. Jean Cassou would like to thank you “officially” for your timely call”. Years later, Silvio saw the curtain from Parade again in London, at the great retrospective of Picasso organised by Roland Penrose at the Tate Gallery and remembered the regret, apparently sincere, of Mr. Lloyd, when he said that there were no museums big enough in the United Kingdom to display it. But of all this, Picasso didn’t care, and never said a word’.

Here in fact, Cassou wrote on 10 February to inform about Dorival's next visit to see the curtain (10 February 1955).

The 5 April Cardazzo communicated to San Lazzaro that the curtain left for Paris a couple of days before.

The 9 May, Cassou communicates to San Lazzaro that he has recently received the curtain and the need to find a place to install it to allow the committee to see it and to make a decision during the June meeting. He then asks him to calm and reassure both Cardazzo and Courthion, since there was a notable delay in the shipment.

On this theme, and more generally on the relationship between Lucio Fontana and the French environment (particularly with the gallery owner Iris Clert), see Lucio Fontana a Parigi, edited by S. Bignami, now being printed, where my article regarding the relationship between San Lazzaro and Lucio Fontana will appear.

The photograph of this event has recently been republished in S. Poggi, Milena Milani, cit., tav. 8, and in Carlo Cardazzo, cit., p. 348. See also M. Milani, L'invasione dei Turchi, Riviera Notte, 15 August 1970.

M. Milani, San Lazzaro et le mythe d'Albisola, cit., p. 125.

Sonia Delaunay, Venice, Galleria del Cavallino, 16-27 August 1956.

Jean Arp, Venice, Galleria del Cavallino, 14-27 September 1957.

G. di San Lazzaro, Paul Klee, Milan, Il Saggiatore, 1960.

Serge Poliakoff, Venice, Galleria del Naviglio, 13-22 April 1957; on this exhibition cfr. also G. Marchiori, Serge Poliakoff, cit., pp 72-73.

Serge Poliakoff, Milan, Galleria del Naviglio, 18 September – 5 October 1958; Serge Poliakoff, Rome, Galleria d'arte Selecta, 25 October – 7 November 1958, cfr. also G. Marchiori, Serge Poliakoff, cit., pp. 72-73.

On Maria Papa: L. P. Nicoletti, Maria Papa. Un destino europeo, with a text by M. Milani, Milan-Paris, Cortina Arte Edizioni-Orenda Art International, 2009.

The correspondence betwen Capogrossi and San Lazzaro is currently being studied, in collaboration with the Archivio Capogrossi in Rome, by Laura D'Angelo and myself.

On the relationships between Sami Tarica and Fautrier, Poliakoff and Atlan see the evidence in G. di San Lazzaro, Parigi era viva, cit., 1966, pp. 259-268.

‘another two paintings by Poliakoff’.

'Poliakoff's exhibition [at Galleria Selecta] closed on 26 November. It was a great success, despite the super-campaign against Poliakoff by the carpet merchant Tarico who personally came to Milan to do it. He went to all the collectors to say that Poliakoff was finished, that you can find his works for much less in Paris, etc. Undoubtedly this damaged sales'.

Cardazzo furthermore promises San Lazzaro 10% of the sale for his collaboration, keeping for himself 33%. ‘I was asking if it would be possible to organise in Milan, Venice and Rome an exhibition of gouache paintings by Kandinsky. I thought that it would interest Madam Kandinsky because, coming to Italy she could be received by the Pope. I do hope that M.me Kandinsky isn’t Protestant!’

Letter from Carlo Cardazzo to Jean Fautrier, Milan, 15 October 1957.

In a letter dated 24 January 1955, Cardazzo proposed to Atlan the same conditions made to Fautrier, proposing 3 – 16 May 1958 as the exhibition dates.

Letter from Carlo Cardazzo to Gualtieri di San Lazzaro, Milan, 15 Octber 1957.

On the fortunes of Fautrier in Italy see W. Guadagnini, La fortuna critica di Fautrier, in Jean Fautrier, catalogue of the exhibition (Modena, Galleria Civica, 9 October – 4 December 1988) edited by F. Gualdoni and W. Guadagnini, Modena, s.e., pp. 63-79

S. Tarica, Comment je suis devenu marchand de tableaux, Paris, L'Échoppe, 2003.

Ivi., p. 65.

On Guido Le Noci (1904-1983) and the Galleria Apollinaire: L. Calvi, La Galleria Apollinaire 1954-1983. Un carteggio tra Guido Le Noci e Pierre Restany, Laurea Magistrale Thesis in Art History and Art Criticism (Università degli Studi di Milano, A.A. 2007/2008) advisor Prof. S. Bignami, co-advisor Prof. G. Zanchetti. From the same author there is an article on this subject in number 7 of L'Uomo Nero, currently being printed.

S. Tarica, cit., p. 66.

Fautrier sued San Lazzaro's magazine for defamation caused by the editorial written with regards to the Biennale.

The same day, Cardazzo wrote to San Lazzaro to ask him to collect information on the identity of the gallery owner who obtained exclusivity on the gouache paintings (22 November 1957).

'Illustrious master, I received your letter of 15 November. I’m very sorry to not have exclusivity of your “gouache” for Italy, because my work would have been more complete. I would be grateful if you could tell me the name of who received exclusivity. I confirm my letter of 11 November for the exclusivity of the paintings and request that Mr. San Lazzaro be my intermediary with Mr. Larcade, because unfortunately I am unable to travel to Paris as I am convalescing from “grippe”. As far as you being presented in my galleries as an artist of the forefront, I completely agree. For several years I have followed, respect and profoundly admire your work and as we have not yet met, I am sure that as soon as it happens you will personally see my sentiments in your regard’.

Catalogo della mostra di Jean Fautrier con opere dal 1928 ad oggi, catalogue of the exhibition Milan, Galleria Apollinaire, 1958) texts by A Malraux, J. Paulhan, H. Read, G. Le Noci, Milan, Apollinaire, 1958.

In Catalogo della mostra di Jean Fautrier, cit. s.p. The article was then published as J. Paulhan, Grace et atrocité de Fautrier, in Les nouveaux rapports de l'art et de la nature, Xxe Siècle, 11, 1958, pp. 23-26. 'extract of an article by Paulhan which appears in the number 11 issue of XXe Siècle'.

G. di San Lazzaro, [Caro Verdet], in Disegni, pitture e arazzi del poeta A. Vertet, catalogue of the exhibition (Milan, Galleria Apollinaire, Marc 1959), texts by G. di San Lazzaro, G. Le Noci and A. Magnelli, Milan, 1959.

‘Vorrei collaborare con lei, nella forma che Lei crederà’; ‘I would like to colaborate with you, in the way in which you wish’, 1 December 1958.

‘Per l'ufficio a Milano, spero di PoterLa aiutare qui nel mio palazzo. Dovrebbe restare liberi dei locali in questo periodo. Per l'impiegata, potrei darLe la mia vecchia segretaria che va via da me, perché vuol lavorare solo mezza giornata, o con orario meno gravoso del mio’; ‘For the office in Milan, I hope to be able to help you here in my building. There should be premises freeing up in this period. For the employee, I could give you my old secretary who is leaving, because she wants to work only half-days, or with less hours than mine’. Ibidem.

Krajcberg, Paris, XXe Siècle Gallery, 20 February – 16 March 1962; Krajcberg, Milan, Galleria del Naviglio, 26 April – 8 May 1962.

Natalia Dumitresco; Milan, Galleria del Naviglio, 12-23 May 1960; Natalia Dumitresco, Paris, XXe Siècle Gallery 4-26 November 1960.

Maria Papa Rostkowska, Milan, Galleria del Naviglio, 26 November – 6 December 1960. This exhibition, presented by André Verdet, marks the artist's début as a sculptor. Only two years later San Lazzaro organises an exhibition in his own gallery in Paris (fig. 9), but together with two other artists: Peintures récentes de Dumitresco et Istrati. Sculptures de Maria Papa, Paris, XXe Siècle Gallery, 16 November – 19 December 1962. On the fortunes of these two exhibitions: L. P. Nicoletti, Maria Papa. Un destino Europeo, cit., pp. 37-45. It seems that San Lazzaro intended to organise another exhibition of his wife's paintings, but evidence comes only from a letter to Giuseppe Marchiori, in which he invites the critic to not forget «Maria Papa, le cui terrecotte hanno avuto tanto successo a Milano e di cui quanto prima faremo una mostra di oli e pastelli a Milano e Venezia» (27 January 1962; Lendinara, Biblioteca Comunale, Archivio Giuseppe Marchiori, b. 26octis/fasc. 272).

At the first edition of the exhibition (Le relief, Paris, XXe Siècle Gallery 2-31 December 1960) the following exhibited: Agam, Arcay, Bodmer, Burri, Capogrossi, Cèsar, Coppel, Cousins, De Giorgi, Robert Delaunay, Domela, Dubuffet, Ernst, Facard, Fontana, Gilioli, Haiju, Jacobsen, Kemeny, Kosice, Krajcberg, Lardera, Laurens, Nando, Nevelson, Osborne, Maria Papa, Penalba, Pevsner, pillet, Piza, Arnaldo Pomodoro, Gio Pomodoro, Requicot, Schofer, Schumacher, Schultze, Signori, Taeuber-Arp, Tapies, Tinguely, Tomasello, Ubac, Vasarely. Two years later, in the second edition (Le relief (2° exposition), Paris, XXe Siècle Gallery 7 June – 27 July 1962), the following exhibited: Arman, Baj, Cèsar, Crippa, Fontana, Klein, Savelli, Soto, Tomasello and Dadamaino (who was not in the exhibition catalogue, due to being a late contact of San Lazzaro, who decided to include her in the exhibition even if the little catalogue had already been printed. I would like to thank Cristina Celario, who found this information studying the documents relative to this artist for her thesis, for this information).

'My nerves are in pieces, the day at the Policlinico di Pavia, the trip to Venice with Milena [Milani] for the funeral (Cardazzo's wife was keeping company of Cardazzo's grief-stricken parents). At the cemetery, in addition to his children, Milena and Renato [Cardazzo], we were there, his friends. Campigli arrived from Paris too. I do not know what else to say. You were with us too!'

[G. di San Lazzaro], Carlo Cardazzo, XXe Siècle, XXIII, 1964, s.p.

EXPOSITIONS