The collector JOSEPH AGIUS speaks to Lara Zammit about the modernist period and the local artists who shaped it.

A new publication by art collector and writer Joseph Agius seeks to explore the visual artists who shaped Maltese modernism. Published by Kite and edited by Patrick Galea, 25 Modernist Artists gives an account of the visual art sphere in Malta during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Among the artists treated in the work are Josef Kalleya, Anton Inglott, Emvin Cremona and other such contributors to the local artistic landscape.

Agius gained his expertise of local modernist art from over 30 years collecting and studying art, his journey into which he says was an accidental one.

“My journey into the local art scene originated from an absolute early 1990s boredom with myself – with my personal situation that included life in general,” says Agius.

He says the same boredom featured prominently in his attempts at studying at the University of Malta in the 1980s, during which he pursued one course after another and resigned from each due to sheer under-stimulation. Contributing to the matter was also the halting of several arts and sciences courses at the university due to the intervention of the prime minister at the time.

Joseph Agius. Photo: Jonathan Borg

“I resigned every time and tried to counter the disappointment by voraciously reading novels by international authors and listening to music,” he says. 

Agius recounts how the embers of a new interest were ignited late in 1992 when a friend invited him to an art exhibition of ceramics.

“This was a language which I had always treated with diffidence. In the space of months, I was won over and, for the next decade and more, spent all my savings on purchasing Maltese modernist and contemporary art.”

Some of the Maltese modernists, such as Antoine Camilleri, Gabriel Caruana and Raymond Pitrè, became some of Agius’s great friends, forming what is reminiscent of a Parisian salon of artistic gatherings.

“I used to visit Gabriel once a week for almost eight years at his gallery at the Ta’ Ganu windmill in Birkirkara and at other times at his studio in Balzan. Pitrè became one of my best friends, every Thursday evening visiting my parents’ house, together with a number of artist friends, for over eight years. It was a memorable time for me, a time which enriched me culturally as discussions were always interesting and eye-opening.”

The essays and explorations featuring in 25 Modernist Artists started out in 2014 in a rudimentary form as posts for a Facebook art-related group that Agius administrator.

A spread in the book dedicated to the art of Antoine Camilleri.

He says collectors of Maltese modern and contemporary art were becoming more numerous and were thirsty for information that was concise and from a collector’s viewpoint. He decided to share his knowledge about a number of local artists, some of whom were friends.

These posts filled a vacuum in artistic discourse at the time as they were viewpoints of a collector rather than an art historian or art critic, says Agius.

These concise posts were afterwards developed into a series of articles for Times of Malta called 20th-century artists who shaped Maltese modernism.

“I don’t necessarily subscribe to an accepted academic point of view, probably due to an idiosyncrasy or flaw in my character that antagonises generally accepted views,” says Agius.

“I feel that a collector doesn’t necessarily have to follow the accepted conventional paths towards building an art collection. Otherwise, it would be someone else’s collection, in this case the art scholar’s.”

Our passions are our own and we owe it to ourselves to nurture them

The history of modernism in Malta itself finds its origin as a form of antagonism, namely against prescribed art forms dominated by the Church and colonial British rule. 

“The visual art sphere in Malta, prior to the advent of modernism, was mainly dominated by the Church, by high society and by the British presence as a colony that, in those years, was yearning for political and intellectual independence,” explains Agius. 

A spread dedicated to the art of Carmelo Mangion.

“The Malta School of Art, instituted in the mid-1920s, fostered a perspective that followed the ethos of the Caruana Dingli brothers.

“Edward Caruana Dingli, an academician, resisted fresh breaths of innovation. However, Robert, having lived for a number of years in the UK and who worked as a cartoonist for various publications, embraced a more modernist approach, one that wasn’t relished and shared by his brother,” he maintains.

Kalleya and Carmelo Mangion, whom Agius considers the fathers of Maltese modernism, tried to break away from the mould.

“These two giants surely left their mark on their Maltese colleagues who, together with them, were the pioneers of Maltese modernism,” says Agius. 

He describes the prominent feature one encounters in the works of artists such as Giorgio Preca, Camilleri, Cremona, Frank Portelli, Esprit Barthet and others as a search for new venues, a discomfort with constraints and a cry for freedom. It is therefore unsurprising that Agius was so drawn to these artists after previously being so overrun by boredom and limitation.

Through his research and exposure to myriad exhibitions in museums and galleries, both locally and abroad, Agius developed a keen sense for contemporary art, saying he could compare and contrast the international contemporary art scene with the local one and identify the original from the follower.

A spread dedicated to the art of Frank Portelli.

“I’m not actually fond of the shock factor in art,” he says. “For example, experiencing Tracey Emin’s Bed as a 1999 Turner Prize exhibit at London’s Tate British revolted me, as did Sarah Lucas’s exhibition at Tate Modern a couple of years later and most of the exhibits at the 1997 Venice Biennale.

“I’m more interested in an original concept, followed by its visual representation as painting, sculpture or photograph.

“That is why I’m particularly won over by the oeuvre of Kalleya and Pitrè (obviously not his commercial and commissioned portrait output). I consider them as originals; this for a number of reasons. After 30 years of collecting, I am quite confident of my tastes as regards the local modernist art scene.”

Speaking about the publication 25 Modernist Artists, Agius says it is authored by someone passionate about art who wants to share his knowledge with like-minded souls before giving up his collection in search of new pastures.

“Our passions are our own and we owe it to ourselves to nurture them,” he emphasises – a good reminder to those of us too caught up in the throes of boredom, deadened by meaninglessness and with a deep longing for a life full of beauty.