After earning a university degree in Humanities, Alberto Moretti made his debut as an artist around the mid-1940s with figurative drawings and paintings winking at Expressionism, although he soon veered toward geometric abstraction. After approaching non-figurative painting, he began experimenting with a synthesis of Informalism and Neo-Dada in 1959. In the 1960s, he turned his attention to an exploration of New Figuration and Pop Art and produced paintings and collages that allowed him to express his vision of Conceptual Art. In the 1970s, Moretti integrated the use of photography and videography into his artistic investigation. In 1972, he founded the Galleria Schema art gallery in Florence and, in 1978, he participated in the Venice Art Biennale. In the 1980s, he displayed his works at important exhibitions and art film festivals. He died in Prato on 29 May 2012.

– title: Gratis

– date: 1965

– medium: collage

– size: 64 x 55 cm

– description: Alberto Moretti’s work entitled Gratis [Free of Charge] – oil on canvas with cardboard inserts – perfectly embodies the artist’s approach to Pop Art. Although cardboard (here used to shape vinyl records) is reminiscent of Cubist experiments, other outstanding details of the work are distinctive of Pop Art: banners and objects that are typical of consumer society and mass production; the selection of pure, vibrant, and lively colours, like the slanting yellow and green stripes in the background that help the artist create a sense of materiality and attachment to reality. The new communication methodology brought by the mass media is therefore seized by Moretti to transform the pictorial language while creating paintings that, as the artist himself underlined, “could seem like advertising” and food for thought on society and art.
The artist’s strong ironic intent is catchy in this work: it is indeed the word “gratis” (literally, free of charge) towering at the centre of the composition that lends a jocular tittle to the painting and connotes the meaning of the work.