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Lot Essay
While a student, Morrocco assisted Robert Sivell on a large mural which is still to be found in the Students' Union in Aberdeen and in 1962 Morrocco worked on a mural at St Columba's Church in Glenrothes of Christ carrying a cross (image below). In 1965 Morrocco was commissioned by Professor Sir Ivor Batchelor (Professor of Psychiatry at Dundee University from 1967 to 1982) to paint two large murals for the dining room of Liff Hospital in Dundee for which the present work is a study. The psychiatric hospital was a central part of Dundee life for over 150 years. Morrocco's murals were part of a concept to expose art to the patients. The site has now been redeveloped but the murals have been preserved.
'I put everything into this mural; it's an amalgam of all the kind of things I had been doing, if you like. I took bits from pictures; I took things from drawings I had done; I took things from memory. One thing led to another in this mural - I had a grand sketch full of things to begin with [the present work]. But I diverted from it as I went on because on the wall itself I began to see other possibilities. This macho Italian bather sitting right here is typical: it exemplifies the kind of Italian young man, the Italian character in a sense. People sleeping in boats, a woman drying a child's feet, boats in the background - people active on this sandy-coloured beach'
(C.Young and V. Keller, Alberto Morrocco 1917-1998, Edinburgh, 2008, p. 105).
For a pencil study of the mural see lot 102.
For an illustration of one of the final murals see C.Young and V. Keller, Alberto Morrocco 1917-1998, Edinburgh, 2008, p. 67).
'I put everything into this mural; it's an amalgam of all the kind of things I had been doing, if you like. I took bits from pictures; I took things from drawings I had done; I took things from memory. One thing led to another in this mural - I had a grand sketch full of things to begin with [the present work]. But I diverted from it as I went on because on the wall itself I began to see other possibilities. This macho Italian bather sitting right here is typical: it exemplifies the kind of Italian young man, the Italian character in a sense. People sleeping in boats, a woman drying a child's feet, boats in the background - people active on this sandy-coloured beach'
(C.Young and V. Keller, Alberto Morrocco 1917-1998, Edinburgh, 2008, p. 105).
For a pencil study of the mural see lot 102.
For an illustration of one of the final murals see C.Young and V. Keller, Alberto Morrocco 1917-1998, Edinburgh, 2008, p. 67).