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Philip Taaffe’s large-scale work ‘Il Terrazzo’ is composed of twenty individual square elements. Taaffe created a frottage of the patterned floor in a room at his Neapolitan residence, Villa Peirce (also known as Villa Rocca Matilde or Villa Lauro) in the Posillipo district, using coloured sheets of paper; in other words, he rubbed the surface texture onto the paper laid over it. This approach combines Max Ernst’s surrealist technique with archaeological documentation.
The historically significant Villa Peirce belonged in the early 20th century to a Sicilian family of British descent, to whom it owes its name. During the final months of the Second World War, the villa served as headquarters for the British Army. Rumour has it that the Waffen-SS had previously been stationed there and that decadent parties were held there shortly before the arrival of the Allies.
The floor documented by Taaffe is said to have come from the bedroom of the then British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill. The artist recounts that the first paintings he saw at an exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum in New York were by Churchill, who was himself a landscape painter. The sequence of colour fields (light at the top, dark at the bottom) subtly alludes to a landscape depiction.
‘Il Terrazzo’ strikingly illustrates the contrast between the decorative surface and the underlying references to his personal and social history.