Beryl Landau and Anthony Holdsworth
September 14 to October 27, 2017
Opening Reception, Thurs. Sept. 14, 6:30 - 8:30 PM
Video Presentation: Sept. 28, 6:30 PM
Istituto Italiano di Cultura
601 Van Ness Avenue
Opera Plaza, SF
Gallery Hours M-F 10 AM - 5 PM
View from the Trastevere, Landau The Fish Market, Catania, Holdsworth
Background on this exhibition:
My arrival in Italy in the late Sixties utterly changed my life. I reached Florence penniless having hitchhiked from Paris. By chance, I was offered a job helping clean up the churches after the catastrophic flood of Nov 1966. I soon became Head of Outdoor Restoration for the Uffizi. Thus I was able to live for a year and half in a tiny rooftop apartment just a stone's throw from the Palazzo Vecchio at a time when the historic center was still a thriving Italian city. Almost below my 'attico', on Via dei Rustici, was a tiny butcher shop. The butcher would compose extemporaneous verse to accompany each purchase. Also close by was a trattoria frequented by Florentine transvestites.
The traditional quality of Florentine life was a revelation to me. I could walk fifteen minutes into the hills beyond the city walls and stand in fields where the 'contadini' were ploughing with oxen. Or I could wander the narrow streets of the Oltrarno where craftsmen still practiced trades initiated in the Renaissance. One of my favorite places to hang out and sketch was the Mercato Centrale which, in those days had a large outdoor market filled with wheeled carts with bright awnings.
What made the most lasting impression on me, as an artist, was the intimate connection between the art on the walls of the churches and the daily life of Florentines.
Returning to Italy with Beryl Landau !984 - 2014
Beryl above Taormina Approaching Stromboli Painting the Fish Market, Catania
I returned to Italy, for the first time, in the mid eighties with Beryl Landau. We enjoyed traveling and painting in the 'Bel Paese' so much that we continued to visit every other year. This exhibition features a small selection of the work we created over these three decades.
The Amalfi Coast, Landau Piazza Kalsa, Palermo. Holdsworth
Roman outlook, Landau Cinque Terre out my Window, Holdsworth
Video Screening, Thursday, September 28, 6:30 PM
The Istituto would like you to sign up for this event on their Website
The 38 minute video that we will screen at the Istituto is a visual diary of our last two month painting excursion. Though mostly focused on our travels from Catania, Sicily via the Aeolian Islands, Naples and Rome to Emilia-Romagna, it also makes passing reference to the huge changes that I have witnessed in Italy since the mid Sixties. It features guitar and mandolin music by Hugo Wainzinger and Al Fabrizio.
After the screening we will answer questions about our travels and our paintings. Join us!
Anthony painting above Naples. Leaving Catania. Beryl above Castellammare