Largely unknown outside art circles, Giorgio Preca is widely considered to be one of the foremost pioneers of Maltese modern art. His trailblazing 1948 exhibition at the Phoenicia Hotel in Valletta is said to have imprinted Modernism on the local scene. In the early post-war years prior to leaving Malta to further his studies in Rome, Preca was employed as a restorer with the Museums Department, where he worked upon a few of the masterpieces from the National Collection. Now some 77 years later, the tables have been reversed, and a team of Heritage Malta curators, conservators and restorers are returning the favour.
Twenty-one paintings, four drawings, and six ceramic objects that Preca used for some of his still lifes have been loaned to Heritage Malta by the artist’s family and restored in time to participate in an exhibition at MUŻA that will run from December 2021 until March 2022. Much of the artwork which travelled from Rome -Preca’s home from 1956 until his demise in 1984- has never been displayed in public, making it a fitting first for the author’s place of birth.
The exhibition, which has been in the pipeline for a few years now, is the result of the goodwill established between Heritage Malta and Preca’s family, and a shared interest in doing justice to Giorgio’ Preca’s legacy.
Giorgio Preca was born in 1909 and studied at the Malta Government School of Art. Together with his friend and fellow restorer Toussaint Busuttil, Preca continued his studies in Rome at the Regia Accademia di Belle Arti and at the British Academy. Preca’s early academic formation is evident in his traditionally executed portrait of Toussaint, which contrasts effectively with the highly abstract oil-on-canvas self-portrait, painted much later in 1953 and acquired by Heritage Malta in 2019.
Shaped by art movements happening on the continent, Preca’s artistic perspective was influenced by contemporary events and preoccupations. Aliens frequently feature in his expressionist oeuvre with its predominance of black contour lines. Another topical reference is made to the outburst caused when a French perfume magnate changed the name of the national newspaper ‘Le-Figaro’ to simply ‘Figaro’.
Despite Preca’s manual dexterity and his experience as a restorer, it was his expressive technique that dictated his manufacturing process and not vice-versa. “A true artist believes that his art will survive and that restorers would do everything in their power to ensure it does,” Anthony Spagnol, Senior Conservator at Heritage Malta, enthuses.
Following a conditional assessment of the paintings done in Rome, work commenced in the Heritage Malta laboratories to ensure the artworks would be preserved in good condition for the exhibition and beyond. Several challenges presented themselves. The impasto application of paint and the long time required for it to dry resulted in deformations in the underlying canvas. To address these deformations, the canvases were placed under suction and gently humidified in order to relieve the tension in the canvas fibres. Most canvases were then strip-lined and stabilised using a new auxiliary stretching frame. Similar consolidation measures were also employed to counteract oxidation of the cellulose fibres caused by excessive use of binding materials such as poppy and linseed oil and varnishes, thereby further weakening the canvas. According to his son Massimo, Preca would apply a layer of varnish to his painting on a regular basis to protect their surfaces and maximise colour saturation.
“Conservators treat the material (colour, binding medium, canvas, and auxiliary support) in order to safeguard the image. There is a misconception that we restore the paintings back to their original state. This is not the case; we conserve the painting in the state it has arrived in our laboratories,” Spagnol stresses. “It is our duty to conserve these works of art for future generations.”
The Preca exhibition represents another milestone in Heritage Malta’s mission to make art more accessible. Notwithstanding the Covid-19 pandemic, this past year has witnessed the return to Malta of Mattia Preti’s ‘Boethius and Philosophy’ and the recent exhibition of 13 loaned masterpieces at MUŻA. Continuing in the same vein, the Giorgio Preca exhibition pays long-due homage to a child of Malta’s hitherto unacknowledged avant-garde contribution to the local arts scene.
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