Ida Barbarigo was born in Venice in 1920 as Ida Cadorin into a family of artists, architects, and sculptors. Although not encouraged by her father to become an artist, she realized from a young age that she had a gift for drawing and an eye for tones and shades. She wanted to become an artist and work in great freedom, not being obstructed by marriage or children. While attending Venice's Accademia di Belle Arti, she transitioned away from architecture studies in order to study painting. Giotto and Cimabue, many Renaissance painters, as well as the art of early civilizations and modern painters such as Piet Mondrian influenced her work.
Read MoreIn 1949 she married another artist, Zoran Music, the love of her life, while stubbornly keeping her independence and continuing her artistic path.
Her restlessness and curiosity led her to travel. In 1952, she moved to Paris, where she wanted to "unlearn" painting and forget academic teaching to create her reality, valid for itself, and able to communicate its world. Soon, she turned towards abstraction, using sinuous forms skillfully orchestrated against light, airy backgrounds, almost always in tone, and often infused with the rhythm of white brushstrokes suggesting the scintillation of light and the fluttering of leaves on the wind.
From 1959 onwards, she lived in Venice and Paris, where she encountered other artists like Germaine Richier, Vieira da Silva, Léon Gischia and Hans Hartung but also critics and art historians, such as René de Solier, Jean Bouret, Jacques Lassaigne, and Pierre Francastel. In 1978, in Venice, she installed herself in the "piano nobile" of Palazzo Balbi-Valier along the Grand Canal. In the attic of the Palazzo she re-created the artistic atmosphere of the house where she was born. She stayed there surrounded by hundreds of artworks, which she created as well as those of the Cadorin family while continuing painting. She passed away in 2018.
Ida Barbarigo participated three times in the Biennale of Venice: in 1942 as a 'young talent', in 1978 with 'I Persecutori' and in 1995 she was selected by Jean Clair for the main pavilion, where an entire room was dedicated to 'Le Sfingi'. The American dealer Patti Birch bought her work to New York. From 1969, the American collector Eric Estorick was one of the main collectors who bought her work. In 1972 she had a retrospective at Le Musée Moderne de la ville de Paris. In 1986 she received a special commission to make portraits of Président Mitterand that were shown at the Elysée in Paris. In 2002 she showed her series "Guardando Guardando" in Giulio Romano's magnificent Palazzo Te in Mantua. In 2004 she had a large exhibition at IVAM in Valencia, curated by Kosme de Barañano. Palazzo Fortuny in Venice hosted an exhibition of her 'Terrestri' in in 2006. Axel Vervoordt presented her work in In-finitum in the same Palazzo Fortuny in 2009.
Ida Barbarigo died peacefully at the age of 97 in her home in Venice.
In 2020, Axel Vervoordt Gallery started representing the Estate of Ida Barbarigo.
In June 2021, the Archivio BCM, regrouping the archives of the artists Barbarigo, Cadorin and Music was founded under the direction of Daniela Ferretti. Its role is to defend and support the work of artists and to promote their historical value by scientifically studying and cataloguing their work. A full catalogue on the work of Ida Barbarigo raisonné is in preparation.
Text courtesy Axel Vervoordt Gallery.
