Riccardo LICATA

Riccardo Licata (1929-2014) – Life, Etchings and Original Lithographs

Riccardo Licata (born in Turin on 20 December 1929, died in Venice on 19 February 2014) was an Italian painter, printmaker, mosaicist and stage designer whose career was divided between Venice and Paris. Shaped by the Venetian abstract scene of the post-war years, he devised a private vocabulary of signs – his 'imaginary letters' – arranged across the sheet like a musical score. For more than three decades he taught mosaic at the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris, while producing a large body of etchings, lithographs and screenprints. In Britain, the British Museum holds one of the most complete groups of his prints in any public collection.

Le Coin des Arts offers several original lithographs by Licata, each signed in pencil: Composition (1976), numbered from an edition of 100 and bearing a Venetian centaur stamp, and two Untitled sheets of 1987 and 1990, the latter an artist's proof, together with an Untitled print of 1988 numbered in Roman numerals. They have been chosen for the quality of the impression, the freshness of colour, condition and provenance.

Early years: Turin, Rome and Venice

After a childhood spent partly in Paris and then in Rome, where the family lived until 1945, Licata settled in Venice with his mother in 1946. At the city's art lycée, which he entered in 1947, he discovered the ideas of the Bauhaus and learnt mosaic; in 1950 he enrolled at the Accademia di Belle Arti. Around 1949 he formed a small abstract-minded group with young Venetians including Ennio Finzi and Tancredi, at a time when Giuseppe Santomaso and Emilio Vedova were the leading figures of Venetian painting.

The 1950s: mosaic, Murano glass and the first etchings

Licata's first solo show was held in Venice in 1951. He soon exhibited at the Venice Biennale – initially with a large mosaic – and at the Milan Triennale, and in 1955 completed a mosaic for the Palazzo dei Lavori Pubblici in Genoa. He also designed for Murano glass, notably a vase with Paolo Venini (1955-56). His earliest abstract etchings date from these years: the British Museum's group begins with plates of 1954, each titled simply with a Roman numeral.

The British Museum collection

In 2017 the British Museum received, from an anonymous donor, a substantial ensemble of Licata's prints: 53 sheets dated 1954 to 2011, from early etchings such as XVI, XXXV or LVIII to late works titled Utra, Ferago and Perpore. The museum's records show that at least some of these sheets were bought at the Galerie Kornfeld sale in Bern in June 2017. Seen together, these prints offer a rare chance in Britain to follow the evolution of his graphic language over almost six decades.

Paris, Severini and a teaching career

A French government scholarship brought Licata to Paris to experiment with colour printmaking. There he assisted Gino Severini at the École d'Art Italien and, from 1961 until 1995, taught in the mosaic studio of the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts. He also taught at the Sorbonne and at the academy of Henri Goetz, and from the 1970s gave courses in printmaking techniques in Venice. His public mosaics can be seen at the University of Lille, in Perpignan, Bourgoin-Jallieu and Sault-lès-Rethel, and in Monza and Reggio Emilia.

Recognition and later years

Licata won the Premio Michetti in 1963 and returned to the Venice Biennale in 1964, 1970 and 1972; he also showed at the Rome Quadriennale and at the biennials of Paris, São Paulo and Alexandria. He designed the sets and costumes for Euripides' Medea in Treviso in 1978. Monographs by the critic Enzo Di Martino appeared in 1982 and 1993, the latter for a retrospective at Ca' Pesaro. Exhibitions at the Biblioteca Marciana (2007) and at Palazzo Venezia in Rome (2009) followed; in 2019 Di Martino gave fifty works, mostly watercolours, to the Fondazione Querini Stampalia in Venice.

Licata as a printmaker

The early plates are etchings printed in small editions – the impression of XXXII (1955) at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, is numbered 10/24. Their Roman-numeral titles (XVI, CLX, CCXXI…) follow the chronology of his work and are the most useful means of identification. From the 1970s, colour lithographs and screenprints dominate, with his calligraphic signs scattered across pale grounds. Printers are seldom recorded on the sheets and, to our knowledge, no catalogue raisonné of his prints has been published, so title or number, date, edition and stamps are what matter when describing an impression.

Collecting Riccardo Licata: a buyer's guide

Edition. Early etchings run to a few dozen impressions (24 for XXXII); later lithographs may reach 100. Artist's proofs are marked 'EA'. See the printing.

Signature. Original impressions are signed by hand in pencil. See the signature.

Identification. Many sheets are untitled or carry only a numeral, so the date and image size are essential.

Pitfalls. Poster and catalogue reproductions carry neither a pencil signature nor an edition number; read online descriptions with care, as some give implausible dates.

Condition. Pale grounds are sensitive to light and foxing; UV-filtering glazing is advisable when framing. Our guarantees are set out on the authenticity page.

The gallery shows Licata's prints alongside those of Giuseppe Santomaso, Zoran Music, another artist at home in both Venice and Paris, Piero Dorazio, Henri Goetz and Valerio Adami. Explore the School of Paris and Lyrical Abstraction and our engravings and lithographs.

Sources and further reading

Licata, Enzo Di Martino, Fabbri, Milan, 1993 · Riccardo Licata. Mediterranean Soul, Sandro Debono and Giovanni Granzotto, Verso l'Arte, 2011 · British Museum – prints by Riccardo Licata · British Museum – Licata, XXXV, 1955 · MoMA – Riccardo Licata, XXXII, 1955 · Artribune – Riccardo Licata, una donazione (2019) · Wikipedia (it) – Riccardo Licata