It Had to Happen

In September, a new exhibition of the American painter’s work. A group of forty paintings of Lombardy, Italy, created during the last twenty years of his life. A new way of painting, born on the Lombard plain

by Rodolfo Balzarotti

From September 9th to 24th, the Cascina Robbiolo in Buccinasco (Italy) will host the first large thematic exhibition dedicated to William Congdon, concentrating in depth on one specific moment in the long and rich artistic itinerary covered by the American artist. A significant group of works has been chosen for this show from among those painted in the last twenty years of his life, all created in his studio in Gudo Gambaredo, on the Lombard plain. This is the place where Congdon preferred silence to the world’s clamor, where he found a place of retreat after the restless trips that took him from New York to Venice, to Santorini, the Sahara Desert, and numerous other places throughout the world. And as Congdon himself explained in 1982, “It had to happen, a way of painting had to be born that summed up the ‘voyage’ of my life, all the struggle between the evil and the creative gifts that are in me…. The prophecy that was hinted at by the sun-disk above the Black City (New York) of ’49 has been fulfilled today....” The prophecy is revealed in the portraits that the artist made of this foggy landscape, the land and the fields, in the infinite variations of the weather or of the cycles of vegetation. The same fields, but never the same picture, a continuing and exhausting search for newness. “It Had to Happen. The Place, the Crucifix, the Field. William Congdon in Lombardy 1979-1998” is an act of homage by the municipal administration of Buccinasco to the guest who for twenty years lived and worked in its territory. The exhibition was realized with the collaboration of The William G. Congdon Foundation and presents some forty Lombard paintings, plus a careful selection of paintings from earlier seasons in his life.