Antoine Camilleri (1922-2005) is one of the giants of Maltese modernism, deeply involved in the three artists’ Maltese movements of the 1950s as well as the 1960s Artists Guild.

Heritage Malta is commemorating the centenary since his birth with a celebratory exhibition entitled Commemorating Antoine Camilleri (1922-2005): A Hundred Years from his Birth. A small but special selection of his works, among which some of his famous self-portraits, together with personal items, introduce the art-loving public to the life and times of this seminal pioneer of our country’s 20th-century art.

Some of the exhibits at the MUŻA exhibition.

The small retrospective, hosted in the intimate space of MUŻA’s Camerone, was officially inaugurated on Thursday, November 17. Katya Micallef, principal curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at MUŻA, conducted an inaugural speech, detailing what Antoine Camilleri was all about and the reason for his love of the colour purple.

This was followed by an online link with Joseph Paul Cassar, who lectures in the US at various institutions. He furnished the audience with endearing anecdotes about Camilleri as Cassar was one of the older artist’s greatest friends in the 1970s and 1980s, when the latter was still a student. Cassar also analysed in depth one of Camilleri’s masterpieces It-Talba, detailing the various concepts enmeshed in this painting and that one also finds across the general oeuvre of the artist. 

Boat trip to Għadira

Afterwards, the audience, which included Camilleri’s wife, children and extended family, was invited to share stories and experiences that brought out the human side of the artist, his love for social interaction, his jovial attitude, his humble demeanour and how he regularly insisted that he was still a student, this notwithstanding that he was one of the giants of our country’s 20th-century art and Maltese modernism personified.

The importance of Antoine Camilleri

Camilleri’s seminal importance is not merely restricted to his impressive artistic output. In the 1950’s, together with Frank Portelli, Josef Kalleya, Hugo Carbonaro and a number of other Maltese artists, he laid the foundations for the three artist groups, Modern Art Circle, Modern Art Group and Atelier ’56, that heralded the birth of Maltese modernism and that led to Malta’s 1958 participation in the Venice Biennale, the most prestigious event in the diary of the international art world.

My Life My Works

Camilleri, together with his colleagues, stubbornly persevered, and through various initiatives and exhibitions, introduced our country to the various art movements and concepts that had taken over the global art world by storm since the birth of modernism, with Impressionism in France in the 19th century.

As detailed by the contributors on the evening of November 17, the central theme of Camilleri’s oeuvre is his family and himself. His numerous self-portraits, which were at times the main theme of the painting or which at other times he integrated into his compositions, are a recurrent theme that somehow establishes the spirit of introspection in his work. These representations of the self are intimate psychological and autobiographical explorations, entries into the artist’s personal diary that document the journey from youth to old age.

After the Bypass

Camilleri integrated the scalpel blade that his cardiac surgeon had used during the multiple-bypass surgery that he underwent, into one of his masterpieces, a self-portrait on incised clay, After the Bypass, dated 1996. He represented himself as an Ecce Homo, nude, old, decrepit, fragile, impotent, a sacrificial lamb, evoking the image on the Shroud of Turin.  A gaping wound, apparently weeping, surrounds the scalpel blade. In fact, a Maltese contemporary artist, Gerald-John Micallef, finds that Camilleri’s paintings are an invitation to engage in prayer.

Camilleri’s seminal importance is not merely restricted to his impressive artistic output

One is at times disconcerted to determine if a particular painting is a Camilleri self-portrait or whether it is a representation of an episode in the life of Jesus Christ. The artist’s ascetic looks, beard and all, skin furrows and expressive hands lent themselves to such depictions. For instance, In his Tomb, not exhibited in the Heritage Malta exhibition, is a reference to Hans Holbein the Younger’s 16th-century masterpiece The Body of the Dead Christ in the Tomb in which the Renaissance master evoked a claustrophobic ‘coffin’, displaying the corpse of Jesus in the most disturbing of details. It is often held that Holbein modelled the figure on the corpse of a Jewish man retrieved from the Rhine. There is a 1949 study of In his Tomb, executed when Camilleri was studying in Paris.

Study for 'In His Tomb'

Camilleri certainly looked back to Holbein the Younger while introducing what looks like his self-portrait into the representation of spiritual Christian imagery. This 1980’s work could illustrate the artist’s acknowledgement of his steady descent into old age and approaching life’s end. Paintings such as this, morose and very introspective, paradoxically antagonise the memories of Camilleri’s youthful spirit and his fun-loving attitude to life.

During his talk, Cassar also very interestingly pointed out that Camilleri anticipated New Realism artist, Daniel Spoerri’s famous breakthrough, known as his ‘snare pictures’ (tableaux piège), in which he fixed the remains of the ordinarily mundane, such as the constituents of a meal, crockery and glassware, in vertical tableaus. Camilleri evidently had embarked on such experimentation prior to the Swiss artist, as shown in Camilleri’s similarly themed work. Cassar said that he approached major art institutions with this claim and none of them negated its veracity. This adds another layer to the relevance of Camilleri as an artist of international importance.

Life Under the Soil

In Life Under the Soil, this experimentation is carried further when, besides wire, rope and plaster, he introduced grapes, preserved by resin, into this unconventional composition.

Antoine exploited the technique of collage by integrating photographs of members of his family such as his mother, his five children and his wife into very eloquent works, and representing himself through one of his typical self-portraits, deep in thought. These works, that Camilleri was ever so reluctant to part with, were displayed in the inner sanctum of his studio up the tortuous stairway in Zachary Street. To those, such as myself, seeing Camilleri sitting on his chair among these works felt like seeing one of his self-portraits come to life.

Incised clay as a Camilleri fingerprint

Camilleri’s use of incised Maltese clay as a medium for his work is one of his defining breakthroughs. Because of its intrinsic properties, Maltese clay is not an easy one to work with. However, Camilleri, studied its behaviour in his incised clay oeuvre, in which sometimes he also added photographs, documents, items of crockery, sheaves of wheat and other material.

The Family

Some of these works are monochrome, evoking an earthily sepia mood etched in a documentary past. At other times, he introduced colour to some of these works. The clay was left to dry, to react with atmospheric conditions and naturally form fissures, showing Camilleri the way forward thematically and composition-wise. He considered these cracks and indentations in the clay as cracks in the skin through which the piece ‘breathed’. A cover of resin provided a measure of protection from unfavourable environmental conditions.

The public should take the opportunity to explore the world of this most important of Maltese 20th-century modernist artists.

Commemorating Antoine Camilleri (1922-2005): A Hundred Years from his Birth, hosted by MUŻA’s Camerone, runs until Sunday, December 4. Consult MUŻA’s website for more information.