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Øistein Thurman

Pezzi da novanta is a watercolor created in 1977 by the Norwegian painter Øistein Thurman (1922–1988), an artist with a modernist background who in 1968 chose Taormina as his home, settling in Sicily with his wife, the painter Gunnvor Advocaat.

The work belongs to the artist’s mature Sicilian production and was part of the exhibition dedicated to his “Visions of Sicily” (Visioni di Sicilia), presented in 1977. It is a particularly significant testament to the phase in which Thurman, after years of abstract experimentation, developed a personal form of figuration inspired by the landscape, culture, and above all, the people of Sicily.

In Pezzi da novanta, two male figures—likely linked to the island’s folk iconography—are depicted head-on through an essential and highly synthetic language. The characters are defined by a swift, decisive, almost graphic line, while broad fields of red, green, black, and yellow build the composition with intense chromatic energy.

However, Thurman’s Sicily is not portrayed through realistic representation. The figures are progressively simplified and transformed into almost archetypal shapes, where reality merges with the artist’s abstract inquiry. It is precisely this distinctive combination of figuration and abstraction, of immediate subject matter and freedom of pictorial gesture, that characterizes Thurman’s Sicilian period.

The watercolor also reveals the artist’s extraordinary technical mastery: applied with quick, generous brushstrokes, the color retains all the freshness and luminosity typical of the medium. The white of the paper, deliberately left exposed in several places, becomes an integral part of the composition, contributing to its distinct luminous vibrancy.

Thurman’s connection with Sicily was deep and enduring. Indeed, his move to Taormina in 1968 marked a decisive turning point in his artistic journey: contact with the island’s landscape and daily life led him toward an increasingly recognizable figuration, while maintaining a strong focus on the abstract qualities of forms and the expressive power of color. (⁠Norsk kunstnerleksikon)

Pezzi da novanta stands as a compelling example of a North European artist’s unique interpretation of Sicily: not a mere literal depiction of reality, but a personal, intense, and chromatically powerful vision in which folklore and the human figure become the subjects of free pictorial exploration.

Author: Øistein Thurman (1922–1988)
Year: 1977
Size: cm L 20 x H 30 without frame
Medium: Watercolor and tempera on paper