Nicknamed “Il Monaco” (The Monk), painter and printmaker Giorgio Morandi (1890 -1964) is known for having lived a simple existence devoted to art. A lifelong bachelor, Morandi rarely strayed far from his hometown of Bologna, where he shared an apartment with his three sisters. There he painted still lifes of bottles and vases, artworks revered today for their subtle harmonies of shape and color.

When the Phillips Collection mounted a Morandi retrospective in 2009, the Bolognese painter was described by the museum as an artist who worked “with the concentration of a Zen master,” making canvases that contained “magic and mystery.” Contemporary painter Sean Scully has called Morandi “the priest of subversion and reverence,” who “sits in his small room stroking his humble surfaces.”

Monk, priest, Zen master? How did Giorgio Morandi become the mythic figure he is today? A remarkable exhibition focused on Morandi’s paintings from the 1930s, now on view at The Center for Italian Modern Art, sheds light on that very question.

Featuring nearly 40 artworks, mostly paintings, this thorough show presents rarely exhibited earth tone oils. CIMA Founder and President Laura Mattioli said, “while Morandi is one of the more well-known Italian modern artists internationally, there’s been very little attention paid to his work during the critical decade of the 1930s. It was during these years, when Morandi experimented with dark colors and thick, dramatic brushstrokes, that he truly developed his most personal approach to painting…”

Morandi dabbled with Futurism and Metaphysical painting at the beginning of his career. Those influences can be seen in some early works here. “Roses,” 1917, looks like a painting of Boccioni-style Futurist flowers in a vase. And a self-portrait from 1919 (on the verso of a painting of a cactus) pays homage to Morandi’s friend Giorgio De Chirico, artist and leader of the Scuola Metafisica.

After these early experiments, the myth of Morandi is that the artist kept a low profile as Fascism raged around him. Legend has it, the unassuming artist developed a unique artistic vision, bravely resisting modernism, closing himself in his studio, doggedly investigating compositional possibilities by adjusting tabletop arrangements.

Mr. Scully has said, “against this backdrop of Fascism” Morandi “made his small revolution. … By slowly withdrawing into his own private box, Morandi constructed a reality that gave him time to think and work against the way large masses of Europe were moving.”

The artist himself perpetuated this version of events. In a 1958 interview, he looked back and recalled, “when most Italian artists of my generation were afraid to be too ‘modern’ or ‘international’ and not ‘national’ or ‘imperial’ enough, I was left in peace perhaps because I demanded so little recognition. In the eyes of the Grand Inquisitors of Italian art, I remained but a provincial professor of etching at the Fine Arts Academy of Bologna.”

But as the saying goes, nothing can come of nothing. And CIMA’s exhibit of artworks made during the rule of Mussolini’s National Fascist Party (1922 – 1943) indicates Morandi’s stylistic development was, in fact, deeply rooted in fascist ideology. Morandi turned away from the arty pretentions of the Metaphysical School to embrace the values of the Strapaese (super country) movement, a nationalist group that glorified Italy’s agrarian identity. Strapaese extolled modesty and simplicity in art and ridiculed effete Parisian modernism.

In a 1928 autobiographical essay published in a Bolognese fascist journal, Morandi wrote “I have had much faith in Fascism since its first inklings, faith that has never ebbed, not even in the darkest and most tumultuous moments.” He boasts, “among the buyers of my works, it gives me great pleasure to recall His Excellency Benito Mussolini.”

Art Historian Emily Braun says Morandi was “the cult object of an aggressively regionalist movement” during the 1920s and 1930s, but “postwar scholarship has done its utmost not to delve into his affiliation with Strapaese.” Paintings here bear out the Strapaese influence. In this show, the palette of Morandi’s paintings seems to reference Italian soil. And, in fact, he was praised in Strapaese journals at the time for using color specific to small town Italian life. Wobbly paintings of crockery intentionally eschew Cubist structure. Resolutely handmade, these works, as Braun puts it, “break with the chicanery of Montparnasse.”

“Natura morta (Still Life),” 1931, is thickly painted in browns and ochers. Dubbed a “pudding painting” by CIMA staff, the objects on a table, a fruit bowl and seashells, are difficult to discern. The lumpy forms resemble recently unearthed Etruscan relics.

A particularly handsome canvas, “Natura morta (Still Life),” 1937, presents bottlenecks and panhandles in a rhythmic arrangement of wiggling verticals. In this raw painting, indigo and brown forms are left as rough silhouettes.

“Paesaggio (landscape),” n.d. (1935 – 1936), is inspired by Cézanne’s Mont Sainte-Victoire compositions. Though he was French, Cézanne’s retreat from Paris was said to be in keeping with Strapaese rural values. Some fascist intellectuals even suggested the Provencal painter was of Italian heritage. Morandi claimed he embodied “the glorious Italian tradition.”

During this interwar period, Morandi’s art was regularly reproduced in the pages of Il Selvaggio, a Fascist Party organ, where they were described as “italianissima.” Artist and intellectual Ardegno Soffici supported Mussolini’s anti-semitic legislation and was also a lifelong friend of Morandi’s. Known as “the prophet of Fascism,” Soffici was a vocal supporter of Morandi’s art. In turn, Morandi said Soffici’s influence “on the mind of our generation has been enormous and beneficial.” Indeed Morandi’s brushy canvases here bear a resemblance to Soffici’s landscapes and still lifes.

Morandi’s embrace of Fascism paid dividends. In 1930, Soffici helped Morandi attain a professorship at Accademia di Belle Arti, and throughout the decade his work was exhibited at important state exhibitions, including the Venice Biennale and the Rome Quadriennale.

As the political winds shifted after World War II, Morandi’s paintings became lighter and more elegant. A selection of silvery still lifes from the 1950s and 60s round out this show.

Speaking about his later period artwork, Morandi said, “I am essentially a painter of the kind of still life composition that communicates a sense of tranquility and privacy, moods which I have always valued above all else.” But, as this exhibit shows, his quiet canvases grew out of a disquieting period in Italy. And though his palette became noticeably lighter, that history ought not be whitewashed.

Giorgio Morandi, on view through June 25, 2016, The Center for Italian Modern Art, 421 Broome Street, 4th floor, New York, NY, 646-370-3596, www.italianmodernart.org .

(Exhibition tours are available Fridays and Saturdays by appointment only at 11:00am, 1:00pm, and 3:00pm. In case extra incentive is needed, tours begin with an espresso from sponsor Lavazza. $10 admission, free with student ID.)

More information about Xico Greenwald’s work can be found at xicogreenwald.com