142 - ALBERTO SUGHI (1928–2012) THE EXECUTIVE (c. 1966). Oil on canvas. 80.50 x 60.50 cm. Signed on the back: label from Galleria La Robinia, Palermo. The work is accompanied by a certificate of registration from the Associazione Culturale Archivio Sughi. EXHIBITION: Alberto Sughi. Works from 1959 to 1970, Galleria La Robinia, Palermo, February 24–March 10, 1970 PROVENANCE: Galleria La Robinia, Palermo; Private collection, Rome. From the standpoint of style and subject matter, this work was most likely created around, if not exactly in, 1966. In fact, in many respects, it is a portrait—suspended between an imaginary portrait and a realistic one—with all the characteristics of portraiture that seeks to capture the subject’s facial features and likeness, while expressing them in a style that immediately and fundamentally identifies it as a painting by Alberto Sughi. For the years 1965–1968, the archive preserves extensive documentation regarding at least twenty-eight portraits—both realistic and imaginary—created by Alberto Sughi. Some are family portraits, depicting his wife and two children; others portray friends, including several prominent figures, such as the journalist Sergio Zavoli, the writer Giuseppe Raimondi, the actor Walter Chiari, and the Socialist politician and senator Francesco Lami.Given a certain resemblance—albeit slight—between the man depicted in *Il Dirigente* and Francesco Lami, one might speculate that the two works were created one after the other and that the title *Il Dirigente* was suggested precisely by this resemblance, perhaps accidental, between this portrait and that of his friend, the leader of the opposition movement. However, it should not be forgotten that just one year earlier, Alberto Sughi had painted the famous *La classe dirigente* (1965), oil on canvas, 165 x 140 cm (published in Maurizio Calvesi, *Alberto Sughi. *Dove va l’uomo*, SKIRA, Milan, 2009, p. 22), in which the ruling class was depicted as a group of politicians seated in the chambers of Parliament, and that the title of this work could refer to that historic painting—and only to that one. The very same face from *Il Dirigente*, with the same gaze and in a pose nearly identical to that of our painting, reappears in the figure on the right of another portrait—or rather, a double portrait—that Sughi painted that same year, *Ritratti*, 1966, oil on canvas, 70x100 cm. Confirmation of the year of creation is also provided by a stylistic comparison with *Portrait of a Man in a Landscape*, 1966, oil on canvas, 100x120 cm, one of the four paintings reproduced in the catalog of the Galleria La Robinia in Palermo. [Serena Sughi, Mario Sughi]. Frame included