Leafing through the pages of the book, one delves into the soul of the artist at its core, retracing the most important stages of his life.
In Series: A Life of Images, which has been available in bookshops since November 29, readers will find a collection of visual and theoretical explorations, most of them never before seen by the public, as well as many works and studies executed before Bruno Leti's most famous pieces.
"We rediscovered most of these works in 2018, when I moved, with my studio, from Carlton to Collingwood ― they were lying forgotten in my drawers," revealed the painter.
"I would define this book as a 'life of paintings'. Over the years, there have been several publications about my art, but little is known about what precedes a finished work.
“In fact, before arriving at the final result, there are numerous studies, drafts and sketches that, most of the time, nobody sees, and nobody knows about. We artists use the word ‘underpins’ to refer to them. Few people know that these works are fundamental to my creativity.”
The idea for this book came about six years ago when publisher Thomas Middlemost submitted the project to Melbourne University Publishing, which was fascinated by the exclusivity of the work.
Leti met Middlemost, who currently teaches at Charles Sturt University in Wagga Wagga, a few years ago, when the latter was conducting research for his Ph.D. at the ANU (Australian National University), for which the Italian-Australian painter was one of the main subjects of study.
The realisation of this publication was also made possible by funding from the Miegunyah Foundation, founded by Mr and Mrs Grimwade, who deeply loved art, and were linked to Leti by a curious coincidence. After the artist's family migrated from central Italy to Australia, they moved to Broadford, a small town where Leti spent his childhood ― by sheer coincidence, the Grimwade family hailed from the same area.
The Grimwades were in fact Leti’s first buyers, purchasing one of his works when he was still a high school student. It was a canvas, painted in 1957, entitled Isola Lipari - Lipari being where the artist went with his parents on holiday when he was a boy, and which can be seen in Series: A Life of Images.
This, however, is not the only work to which the painter feels particularly attached. In fact, he also dwells on The Marble Lotus, a painting representing a dualistic view of reality, which takes inspiration from both Italian and Chinese cultures.
“I believe that one of the best features of this book is that it is not like my other works: it does not have a defined beginning and end, but has many differentiated parts, which is why it is called Series,” Leti explained.
“For each part there are paintings, and explanations related to them that illustrate all of the work behind them, and the paths that led to the creation of the works as we know them.
“For example, the first one is called Pompeii. The last time I went there was about fifty years ago, and I was so taken by so much beauty that I perhaps did not dwell enough on the magnificence of the Roman frescoes on the walls of the excavations.”
According to the artist, in this particular series, Middlemost perfectly explains in his own words, what lies behind each painting. This, in fact, is precisely the aim of the book: to allow the reader to appreciate not only the painting itself, but the story behind it, and the steps that lead to its creation. There are not only the colours, shapes and materials, but also the choices behind their use; to understand why the artist, for example, switched from a figurative visual language to an abstract one over the course of his career.
In order to better understand the hidden meanings of the works, the book has benefited from contributions by several experts: Anne Kirker, Chris Wallace-Crabbe, Jenny Zimmer, Sasha Grishin, Peter Steele SJ, Des Cowley, Alan Loney and Sheridan Palmer.
Featured are not only paintings, but also some photographs of the places where Leti’s ideas were born.
The reader can, in fact, admire the view Leti enjoyed from his studio in Carlton, from where he could secretly peer up at the Melbourne Exhibition Building's dome, inspired by Brunelleschi's cupola of the Santa Maria del Fiore Cathedral in Florence, or meet his little dog, Bess, a constant presence in his new Collingwood studio.
"One of the aspects I like best about this book is that the reader can flip through it and decide to read it, not necessarily in sequence, but choosing the order they prefer, and get to know an important aspect of my life anyway," Leti concluded.
