Franklin Einspruch reviews works by Giorgio Morandi at the Center for Italian Modern Art, New York, on view through June 25, 2016.

Einspruch writes that "CIMA emphasizes [Morandi's] work from the 1930s, which is the early side of the mature paintings… By the Thirties he figured out that his strengths lie in the landscape and still life. Painting the figure, as made clear by a mushy self-portrait from 1930, inflicted agony on him. A still life from a year later shows him emptying the forms he depicts of everything but the essential minimum of modeling, and doing so with command. This turned out to be a rich enough problem to occupy him fruitfully for the next thirty-three years."