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Morrocco had always carried a sketchbook in Italy, making swift, decisive observations of whatever presented itself as interesting. Looking like a benign version of Picasso, in a horizontally striped shirt, neckerchief and broad smile, no one would object to the artist making a quick sketch. These drawings were put to the best possible use in the last decade of his life; ideas a-plenty to start the business of painting. In earlier decades he tended to deploy more traditional techniques with preparatory drawing and underpainting, and his colour was always personal but under restraint. Now he let loose: brilliant reds, blues, oranges, veridian and vermillion. Still life, beach scenes, sometimes combined, Italians at play, a dog listless in the noonday heat.
In Two Women at a Window, Picasso’s Classical period is present but fully absorbed into Morrocco’s playful, elysian Italy, a painting full of warmth, sensuality, and gentle humour.
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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