Themes

As a recipient.of “Premier Grand Prix de Rome de gravure” in 1949, the etcher and painter Jean Delpech lived in the Villa Medicis from 1949 to 1952.

During these three years, he made a series of 62 drawings (ink and watercolour, size 58x78cm) conveying his impressions about Italy at the beginning of the fifties.

His vision expressed his surprise and enthusiasm as a foreigner discovering a country (two times a foreigner, having spent his first years in Indochina). During his travels around Italy, he created hundreds of sketches which he assembled afterwards in large synthetic compositions.

The techniques he used to finalize these drawings  are closed to cinemaographic montage and collage, and demonstrated his curiosity for the minute detail of monuments, landscapes, everyday life, fashion, and advertising.

His works are personal interpretations but also valuable accounts of the spirit of a period, “a true document, beyond realism”, as said Alberto Moravia when he discovered the series in Paris. They are full of the atmosphere of the “Roman Short Tales” of Moravia or of  the Rossellini’s “Viaggio in Italia”.

The result is a tribute to the country that hosted him during these difficult after war years.

The artist always refused to scatter these drawings – shown sometimes separately in shows or galleries – not to loose the impact of the entire series, still unknown as a whole.

Naples

Regions

Sicily

Rome