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In this Edinburgh Festival exhibition, we marked the centenary of the birth of Alberto Morrocco, one of the dominant figures in the Scottish art world in the second half of the 20th Century. His personality, described ‘in a few words’ by his friend David McClure in his introduction to our retrospective of 1990 Paintings from the Artist’s Studio, was full of ‘abundance, energy, intelligence and generosity of spirit.’ McClure went on to write “Alberto painted as an Italian operatic tenor sings that is with a passionate theatricality and always ‘con brio.’” There was something exotic about his rich voice, rolling ‘rs’, never far from laughter, but the accent, difficult for many to place, (Italian?) was pure Aberdonian. He had a commanding, Picasso-like presence to which all naturally gravitated, but he had none of the entitlement or arrogance which sometimes accompanies such a talent.
Alberto Morrocco was born in Aberdeen to Italian parents in 1917. He attended Gray’s School of Art from the prodigious age of fourteen, tutored by James Cowie and Robert Sivell, and won the Carnegie and Brough travelling scholarships, affording him opportunity to paint and study in France, Italy and Switzerland in the late 1930s. After serving in the army between 1940-46 he devoted his time to painting. His subject matter varied from the domestic interior, landscape, imaginings of Italian life, still life and many commissioned portraits. Combining his talent with abundant energy he became one of the most dominant figures in the Scottish artworld in the second half of the 20th century. David McClure succinctly explained: ‘Alberto painted as an Italian operatic tenor sings, that is with a passionate theatricality and always con brio. Alberto Morrocco was the subject of a centenary exhibition at The Gallery in August 2017.
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