Vatican Museums

A lonely and isolated figure, Bice Lazzari was born in Venice and began her artistic itinerary by painting landscapes influenced by Venetian vedutism. During the Thirties, when she transferred to Rome, she gradually dissolved her links with the figurative tradition and began to experiment, focusing on the expressive potential of material. This gave rise to a subjective interpretation of the Informal, achieving lyrically laboured outcomes in the series entitled Situations and Stories. The oil painting Story. LS2, dating from 1958 and donated to the Vatican Museums in 2006 by the artist’s niece, Mariagrazia Oliva Lapadula, belongs to the latter series. Almost a meditation in earth tones, it is a splendid example of the poetic value that distinguishes the late work of Bice Lazzari, who died in Rome in 1981.