PUBLICATIONS
Year of Publication – 2024
Pages – 101
Soft Bound
Victor Pasmore (1908–1998) has long been considered as a leading protagonist of the twentieth-century modern art movement, whose revolt against the figurative was heralded by Herbert Read as ‘the most revolutionary event in post-war British art’ and which, as a result, spring-boarded his artistic career into an abstract realm branded by a continuous development towards ‘the complete autonomy of painting as an independent object’. It is this latter, experimental phase which is represented in the Victor Pasmore Gallery, through works which were mostly produced and left behind in his farmhouse in Gudja, Malta, with others being brought over from Great Britain. The works on display essentially trace Pasmore’s move from relief-painting and constructions to painting, while revealing an unbridled fascination with the poetic language of opposites, symbolism and metaphor—all of which are components forming part of an ongoing ‘developing process’ which Pasmore religiously followed until the end.
The catalogue is available for purchase directly from the Victor Pasmore Gallery at APS House, St Paul Street, Valletta
Contents
VICTOR PASMORE (1908–1998): AN INTRODUCTION
PERMANENT COLLECTION
A DEEPER LOOK
REFLECTIONS ON ABSTRACTION
REFLECTIONS ON COMPOSITION
REFLECTIONS ON VISUAL POETRY
REFLECTIONS ON PLACE – PASMORE’S HOUSE IN MALTA
REFLECTIONS ON PASMORE AND HIS MALTESE PEERS
REFLECTIONS ON THE INDEPENDENCE OF PAINTING
TEMPORARY COLLECTION
ABOUT THE COLLECTION
IN SEARCH OF LINE dives deep into the artists’ drive to create and represent images, meanings, and emotions through line. It presents a fully illustrated journey which captures the spirit of the ‘line’: creative, inquisitive, at times serious and complex, and at others surprisingly playful and straightforward.
The reflective piece penned by Sarah Chircop, introduces the three main sections of this title—the line’s manifestation in invention, gesture, and movement. The point-form structure and seemingly fragmented ideas, gradually combine into a consistent narrative, deepened by the essays of the various authors, each written with an independent rhythm inspired by the highlighted artwork. Inviting, yet inconclusive, these essays are intended to act as guides, mere signposts, along an imaginative, visual, sensorial journey in search of the concept, expression, and legacy of line, through stunning examples of Maltese art history and beyond—from the Maltese twentieth-century greats like Apap, Agius, Borġ, Camilleri, Caruana, Chircop, Cremona, Kalleya, Pace, Portelli, Sciortino, to foreign masters and pioneers like Preti, Spence, Fontana, and Pasmore… and more.
IN SEARCH OF LINE features essays by prominent artists, philosophers, renowned and upcoming art writers, including Matthew Attard, Robert Brewer Young, Vince Briffa, Richard England, Giulia Privitelli, and Michael Zammit.
Year of publication: 2018
Pages: 56
Soft Bound
Out of Print
Published by Fondazzjoni Patrimonju Malti
To commemorate the Willie Apap: Revelations exhibition held in 2018, a small catalogue was published. The catalogue, like the exhibition tracks Apap’s evolution in choice of subject matter, form and colour palette reveals a certain kind of purification, a move from the exterior to the interior, from the visible realm to that of the inner human condition, and ultimately to the spiritual, that is, to what cannot be seen or touched.
Contents
Foreword by Giulia Privitelli
Revelations by Maria Cassar
Catalogue
Encounters with Malta and Gozo
Lawrence Pavia
Year of publication: 2018
381 Pages
ISBN: 978-99909-3-226-3
Hard cover: €98
Published by Fondazzjoni Patrimonju Malti
CONTENTS
Foreword by Philip Trevelyan
The Allure of Malta’s Landscape
The Spirit of Time – Post-war to Independence
Trevelyan’s and Fedden’s First Encounter with Malta
Julian Trevelyan’s First Malta Suite, 1959
Trevelyan’s and Fedden’s Paintings from 1963
Julian Trevelyan’s Second Malta Suite and Other Etchings
Maturing Style – The Seventies and Beyond
Landscape with a Spirit of Time and Place – The Malta Legacy
JULIAN TREVELYAN
Appendix I – List of Malta Etchings, Details and Specifications
Appendix II – First Malta Suite,1959 / Second Malta Suite, 1970
Appendix III – Sketchbooks of Malta
MARY FEDDEN
Appendix IV – Sketchbooks of Malta
Letters, Caricatures and Other Works
Giovanni Bonello, Petra Caruana Dingli, Anastasia Anastasi Vella, Gorg Mallia
Year of publication: 2016
364 Pages
ISBN: 978-99909-3-214-0
Hard cover: €72
Published by Fondazzjoni Patrimonju Malti
This book makes public a unique trove of over a hundred personal letters written during and after the First World War by Robert to his close friend and mentor, the art expert Vincenzo Bonello. Robert’s letters come across as passionate, emotional, often quite over the top, and deal preponderantly with current matters, painters’ gossip, art work in progress, money problems, the international art scene and, sometimes, with more personal issues. When he considered the occasion warranted it, he could be mercilessly scathing towards other artists and not averse to resorting to colourful, sometimes scurrilous, if not outright vulgar, turns of phrase.
It can safely be claimed that Robert’s letters to Bonello constitute a fundamental breakthrough in the understanding of the art milieu of the early twentieth century. The personality and the spirit of no other Maltese artist of that period have had the fortune of being documented so intimately, almost invasively, as Robert Caruana Dingli’s do through these, his own, incredibly candid outpourings. He was a man of intense artistic sensibility, of strong likes and even stronger dislikes.
CONTENTS
Foreword
Giovanni Bonello
Robert Caruana Dingli’s Private Letters
Giovanni Bonello
Robert Caruana Dingli (1882-1940), A Maltese Artist
Petra Caruana Dingli
Robert Caruana Dingli’s Art – Its Development, What Influenced It and Its Aftermath
Anastasia Anastasi Vella
Robert Caruana Dingli’s Cartoons from the Early 1920s
Gorg Mallia
Letters from London to Vincenzo Bonello in Malta
Letters from Gozo to Vincenzo Bonello in Malta
John Varriano
Year of publication: 2014
200 Pages
ISBN: 978-99909-3-192-1
Out of print
Published by Fondazzjoni Patrimonju Malti
In this book, the well-known US art scholar Prof. John Varriano provides an overview of all Lear’s works related to Malta and the artist’s life on the Island. He has also transcribed for the first time all the entries in Lear’s diaries during his visits and stays in Malta. These diaries, which are housed at the Houghton Library within Harvard University, chronicle this artist’s moods and feelings: intimate, poignant, reflective and humorous.
This publication complements the exhibition ‘Edward Lear: Watercolours and Words’ at Palazzo Falson in Mdina which, as with all this museum’s exhibitions, takes as a starting point an item within its collections, in this case a splendid watercolour of Fomm ir-Riħ that Lear painted in 1866 during his final and longest sojourn on the Island. The exhibition brings together twenty-one Maltese works by this highly lyrical artist in a unique setting, side by side with Lear’s up-to-now unpublished diary entries relating to that particular image. Lear, bizarre in his lifestyle and in his writings, created some of the most ethereal, poetic and elegantly understated imaging of Malta ever to be seen.
CONTENTS
Foreword by Nicholas de Piro
Introduction
Diary, Letters and Watercolours
Checklist of Works Painted in Malta
Index
Albert Ganado, Antonio Espinosa Rodriguez
Giovanni Bonello, Petra Caruana Dingli, Anastasia Anastasi Vella, Gorg Mallia
Year of publication: 2018
686 Pages
ISBN: 978-99909-3-224-9
Hard cover: €78
Published by Fondazzjoni Patrimonju Malti
CONTENTS
Introduction
Encyclopedia
Abbreviations
Bibliography
Journals and Periodicals
Appendix I – Malta Art Groups and Associations
Appendix II – A List of Art Exhibitions in Malta
Format: Hardback
Pages: 336
Year: 2022
ISBN: 978-9918-23-087-7
Dimensions: 297 × 210 cm | 2500g
Published by Kite
Joseph Agius through this publication makes an important contribution not only to the study of modern art in Malta but, in his inimitable style, also provides a 360-degree view of the profiles of the artists and chronicles their journey. His knowledge of their works comes across vividly, aided in no small way by his seasoned appreciation of fine art through years of collecting experience. As a storyteller of those who helped shape Maltese modernism, fusing it into the fabric of our centuries-old artistic tradition and making it, in Schiele’s words, “eternal”, Joseph Agius leaves his mark for many years to come.
Artists featured in this volume:
Josef Kalleya (1898-1998)
Carmelo Mangion (1905-1997)
Giorgio Preca (1909-1984)
Anton Inglott (1915-1945)
Victor Diacono (1915-2009)
Willie Apap (1918-1970)
Emvin Cremona (1919-1987)
Esprit Barthet (1919-1999)
Antoine Camilleri (1922-2005)
Frank Portelli (1922-2004)
Frank Baldacchino (1924-2016)
George Fenech (1926-2011)
Joseph M. Borg Xuereb (1928-1996)
Gabriel Caruana (1929-2018)
Harry Alden (1929-2019)
Toni Pace (1930-1989)
Alfred Chircop (1933-2015)
Anton Agius (1933-2008)
Joseph M. Genuis (1934-1970)
Richard England (b. 1937)
Joseph Casha (1939-2011)
Raymond Pitrè (b. 1940)
Frans Galea (1945-1994)
Caesar Attard (b. 1946)
Pawl Carbonaro (b. 1948)
Format: Hardback
Pages: 256
Year: 2021
ISBN: 9789918 230358
Dimensions: 28.2 × 24 cm
Architecture in Malta during the first half of the twentieth century has to date been a neglected area of academic research. Although there have been succinct contributions profiling some of the more prominent architects, Maltese architecture of this period has never been analyzed within the prevailing political and socio-economic context. This publication seeks to address this lacuna in local architectural history. The period under study is a tumultuous one, encompassing the First World War (1914–18), the Sette Giugno (1919), the Self-Government Constitution (1921), the suspension of that same Constitution (1930), the Language Question (mid-1930s), the Second World War (1939–45), and the Post-War Reconstruction (1943–50). It was a period of major challenges with Malta under British colonial rule, characterized by an unstable economy, distinct social classes, and political aspirations for greater autonomy and self-governance.
Author: Gerald Bugeja. Guest contributors Giovanni Bonello, Sandro Debono and Theresa Vella. Editor George Cassar
Format: Hardcover
Pages: 272
Year: 2015
ISBN: 9789995 7505176
Dimensions: 325 × 240 cm | 1100g
Published by Kite
Antonio Sciortino The Lost Album contains 110 photographs which depict a number of works by the famous Maltese sculptor Antonio Sciortino (1879-1947). Some photographs show unknown models while some others illustrate known models of which no photographic reproductions had ever come to light. The discovery of this album counts as a major breakthrough in the understanding of the artist and his art. The wealth of photographic information along with a focussed and analytic discussion by Gerald Bugeja on the sculptor, his works and his times, are being published for the first time in this comprehensive book.
This book includes three guest contributors Giovanni Bonello, Sandro Debono and Theresa Vella.
Hardbound + Jacket
Publication Date: November 2015
Pages: 160
Year: 2015
ISBN: 9789995 750145
Dimensions: 310 × 225 cm | 600g
Published by Kite
“The works featured in this publication may well be termed a collection of visual hymns and graphic pens, dreamscapes from the artist’s subconscious, transferred onto paper by the magical movement of his dexterous hand.” – richard england
“The works presented in the book demonstrate Gabriel Caruana’s freedom in spontaneity, his ability to constantly create new from. They are the work of a master in his element.” – charlene vella
• Over 60 unpublished works of art (2010 – 2015)
• Documents & photographs from Gabriel Caruana’s personal archive
• Essays by Prof Richard England & Charlene Vella
Hardbound + Jacket
Publication date: 17th September 2015
A very limited number of individually drawn jackets and signed by Gabriel Caruana. Currently out of stock
A first in book publishing in Malta.
Author: Richard England/Charlene Vella
Pages: 160
Year: 2015
ISBN: 9789995 750145
Dimensions: 310 × 225 cm | 600g
Published by Kite
“The works featured in this publication may well be termed a collection of visual hymns and graphic pens, dreamscapes from the artist’s subconscious, transferred onto paper by the magical movement of his dexterous hand.” – richard england
“The works presented in the book demonstrate Gabriel Caruana’s freedom in spontaneity, his ability to constantly create new from. They are the work of a master in his element.” – charlene vella
• Over 60 unpublished works of art (2010 – 2015)
• Documents & photographs from Gabriel Caruana’s personal archive
• Essays by Prof Richard England & Charlene Vella
Hardbound + Jacket
Publication date: 17th September 2015