Head of a Tiger

Antonio Ligabue (1899-1965)
1956, Oil on board

This is one of two Tiger Heads in the collection, both painted in a frontal pose that accentuates the drama of the scene which appears to be an ambush. The frontal view of a tiger appears in Ligabue’s paintings as early as the mid 1930s: the animal appears to enter the frame from the right, so its body is not perfectly centred, and this apparent movement emphasizes its aggressive character. The work exhibited here is dated between 1955 and 1956: in this period, the artist embellished his paintings with stylised vegetation. Green scratches representing marsh reeds behind the animal's head serve as the only background. The graphic rendering of the eyes, with their horizontal slits, and the stripes in the tiger’s fur in particular recall the graphics of certain circus posters that appeared in the countryside of the Po' valley in those years and were much admired by the artist. This painting was exhibited in 1962 in Guastalla in Ligabue's second solo exhibition: during the run of the show, he was diagnosed with cerebral hemiparesis, which prevented him from painting thereafter.