Luigi Pericle, March of Time I, 1962/1963, mixed media on canvas, 50 x 62.5cm, courtesy York Museums Trust (York Art Gallery)

AN exhibition of two halves might describe the latest at the Estorick in Canonbury, where Luigi Pericle: A Rediscovery* is running to December 18.

Swiss, of Italian origin, Pericle, or Pericle Luigi Giovannetti (1916-2001), would not comment on his works. He made money with a comic strip, Max the Marmot, devised in 1952, which was hugely successful and ran in such prestigious publications as Punch and The Washington Post.

In addition he was “a scholar of esoteric philosophies”, as the Estorick notes.

One room is testimony to the popularity Pericle’s abstract work, enjoyed in this country during the early 1960s, it being admired by, among others, the art historian and critic Sir Herbert Read and the artist Ben Nicholson.

It had solo exhibitions at London’s Arthur Tooth & Sons gallery and the Arts Council sponsored tours at museums, including York and Cardiff, Leicester, Bristol and Hull.

In addition to elegant mixed media works on canvas, such as March of Time I, from York Art Gallery,1962-3, and a striking The Archangel IV – haunting and reminiscent of Gateshead’s Angel of the North – from a private collection, 1965, there are powerful works of India ink on paper, almost calligraphic but with broad, bold, brush strokes.

Together these can be seen as the first part of this show of “rediscovery”.

Untitled (Matri Dei d d d), 1974, mixed media on Masonite, 65 x 51cm, private collection

For, as his reputation grew, and the artist had featured in a couple of group exhibitions with, for example, Pablo Picasso and Jean Dubuffet, he suddenly withdrew from the art world in 1965.

The second part of the show has a number of the many works, apparently never intended to be shown, that he produced after he retreated to his villa in Ascona to continue philosophical studies and paint in tranquillity.

Typically these may simply be “Untitled”, many of mixed media on Masonite from the 1970s, and include the inscription (Matri Dei d.d.d.) or Matri Dei dono dedit dedicavit, gift to the Mother of God; made and dedicated by the artist.

These are innovative and challenging pieces, the exact techniques Pericle used being hard to determine. Symbols and geometric forms are obviously important. More so than the figurative works that he destroyed earlier in his career.

Yet while there’s an overt sense he is seeking a specifically spiritual side to his imagery, the evidence in this exhibition is that this took many and disparate forms.

The Swiss town of Ascona, on the shore of Lake Maggiore, had been a vibrant centre for artists and thinkers well before Pericle took up residence after World War II.

Archive material can also be seen in the Estorick show, reflecting the artist’s interests and enquiries, running from Zen to theosophy, astrology, homoeopathy and more.

After his death the villa was abandoned until being purchased in 2016 by Greta and Andrea Biasca-Caroni, and their rediscovery of its extraordinary contents, hundreds of paintings, drawings, books, manuscripts and notebooks.

Cataloguing and restoring these is ongoing, and is overseen by Ascona’s Archivio Luigi Pericle, with which this show is organised.

• At Estorick Collection of Modern Italian Art, Canonbury Square, N1 2AN until December 18.
www.estorickcollection.com