Cocottina

Antonio Donghi’s work was shown for the first time at the 1928 Venice Biennale in a room with six of his other paintings. Ugo Nebbia criticized the insistent realism of Cocottina as being “…so definite in its psychological poverty, its subtle research that accentuates the characters of certain types – he corrupts pictorial matter with a workmanship and a tonality that exasperates it, giving his figures such crude prominence as to make them appear more embalmed than alive.”

It was shown again with the title Donna al Caffè only in 1965 in Rome at Casa della Fornarina, subsequently at the Exhibition of Italian Modern Art in Firenze in 1967 (but dated 1925), and then again in Rome at the Palazzo Braschi exhibition.

Bibliography

Ugo Nebbia, La XVI Esposizione Internazionale d’Arte, Luigi Alfieri & C. Editori, Rome 1928; Alberto Neppi, Artisti del nostro tempo. Antonio Donghi pittore di caratteri, in “La Stirpe”, September 1928, Rome; Maurizio Fagiolo dell’Arco, Valerio Rivosecchi, Antonio Donghi. Vita e opere, Umberto Allemandi & C., Torino 1990, page 190, cat. 46; Bruno Mantura, Valerio Rivosecchi (editor), Antonio Donghi, 1897-1963, De Luca, Rome, 1993, exhibition catalogue (Spoleto, Palazzo Racani Arroni, June 30 – September 5, 1993, Rome, Palazzo delle Esposizioni, September 22 – November 7, 1993), page 116, no. 23.