September 13, 2005

A.G. Rizzoli. Inspired by this FPP, I'm hereby turning you on to the artwork of this Californian, the son of Italian immigrants and a lifelong celibate, who worked by day as a lowly draftsman, but in his spare time experienced mystical visions and created architectural renderings of ornate imaginary buildings. I discovered Rizzoli at a show at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
posted by HawthorneWingo 18 years ago
  • What a nutjob. Never heard of this guy. This is absobloodylutely fantastic. I am turned on. Thank you HawthorneWingo.
  • Oh my god, these are fantastic! If I ever have a spare $14k-160k lying around, I'll start a Rizzoli collection. Anyone want to create an imaginary map in which these could be located?
  • A good friend of mine discovered these drawings, so I have spent a fair amount of time around them, and they are truly strange and fascinating when viewed up close! Add to that the mystery of the artworks never having really been known during his Rizzoli's lifetime and the obsessive nature of his work and "philosophy" and it becomes even stranger. There was a documentary made about him, by PBS perhaps (?), but I'm not sure it has aired yet.
  • Nice post. Thanks!
  • Beautiful, Deadnought. I think I'll move there.
  • Absolutely fascinating. Because he committed his obsessions to high-quality paper, we still have them today. I'm buying a copy of the affordable collection. ))) ... many of the drawings were intended as symbolic portraits of friends and family, depicting them as buildings. That I very much want to see.
  • I shall inform Lord Vader!
  • These are neat. Thanks, HW. MCT: Damn, but you're annoying.