Giorgio Morandi (July 20, 1890 – June 18, 1964) was an Italian painter and printmaker widely known for his subtly muted still-life paintings of ceramic vessels, flowers, and landscapes—their quiet, meditative quality reflecting the artist's rejection of the tumult of modern life.

[3] In 1910, he visited Florence, where the works of artists such as Giotto, Masaccio, Piero della Francesca, and Paolo Uccello made a profound impression on him.

During World War I, Morandi's still life paintings became more reduced in their compositional elements and more pure in form, reflecting an admiration for both Cézanne and Henri Rousseau.

This was his last major stylistic shift; thereafter, he focused increasingly on subtle gradations of hue, tone, and objects arranged in a unifying atmospheric haze, establishing the direction his art was to take for the rest of his life.

With great sensitivity to tone, colour, and compositional balance, he would depict the same familiar bottles and vases again and again in paintings notable for their simplicity of execution.

"[12] Morandi was perceived as one of the few Italian artists of his generation to have escaped the taint of fascism, and to have evolved a style of pure pictorial values congenial to modernist abstraction.

Artists who have cited Morandi's work as an influence include Philip Guston, Vija Celmins, Wayne Thiebaud, Edmund de Waal, Joseph Cornell, Louise Nevelson, and Stanley Whitney, as well as architect Frank Gehry.

Among those who photographed Morandi or his studio were Herbert List, Duane Michals, Jean Francois Bauret, Paolo Prandi, Paolo Ferrari, Lamberto Vitali, Libero Grandi, Franz Hubmann, Leo Lionni, Antonio Masotti, Carlo Ludovico Ragghianti, Lee Miller, Giancolombo, Ugo Mulas, Luigi Ghirri, Gianni Berengo Gardin, and Luciano Calzolari.

[27][28] Although Morandi was not greatly concerned with exhibitions during his own lifetime, his works have been subsequently displayed in the Museo d'Arte Moderna di Bologna (MAMbo) and many other cities.

Still Lifes 1950–1964", curated by Laura Mattioli Rossi, was inaugurated at the Peggy Guggenheim Museum in Venice, at first held at Galleria dello Scudo, Verona, in winter 1997–98.

[35] An exhibition pairing paintings by Morandi with those of Old Masters he admired, including Crespi and Zurbarán, was staged at the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao in 2019.

In 2018, a rare oval-shaped Morandi painting from the collection of David Rockefeller sold at Christie's in New York for US$4.3 million, setting a record for the artist.