With September come the figs - curated by Flavio Scaloni

A curation by Flavio Scaloni, Gallery Manager at Galerie Lo Scalo - The Fig motif inspires artists by addressing universal themes of knowledge, shame, and temptation (the fig leaf's biblical role), contrasting with ancient symbols of fertility and abundance. The fruit's hidden internal flowers lend it an association with hidden sexuality and the unconscious. Historically, the fig leaf's presence in art signifies the transition from innocence to knowledge. A key 20th-century figure is Pablo Picasso, whose painting, Woman with Fig (1944), uses the fruit for its primal, sensual power. Post-1950, American painter Fred Tomaselli incorporates actual fig leaves into mixed-media works like Migrant Fruit Thugs (2006), grounding the artwork in memory and nature. World-famous photographer Paulette Tavormina is renowned for her still lifes, which directly reference Old Masters. Her photograph, Still Life with Figs and Apricots, After LM (2014), showcases the lush, temporal beauty and sensual richness of the fig in a dramatic, vanitas-inspired composition.