Exhibition Catalogue: Gino Severini. Diary of a Life
On the occasion of the sixtieth anniversary of the death of Gino Severini (Cortona, 1883 – Paris, 1966), Galleria Russo presents the major retrospective Gino Severini. Diary of a Life, an extensive exhibition project dedicated to one of the most cosmopolitan and profoundly European protagonists of twentieth-century art.
Curated by Daniela Fonti, author of the Catalogue Raisonné of Gino Severini, scientific director—together with Francesco Tetro—of the Archive of the Works of Duilio Cambellotti, and president of the Carlo Levi Foundation, the exhibition is distinguished by a particularly compelling curatorial approach. The sixty works on display transform each phase of Severini’s career into a chapter of his artistic “diary.”
The exhibition unfolds as a true visual narrative—a diary, in fact—composed of diverse elements: working notes on paper, sketches, preparatory studies, finished drawings, major paintings, and sculptures. Despite this variety, the presentation maintains a remarkable intellectual and poetic coherence. The result is a journey notable for its diversity of techniques, languages, and approaches, revealing the complexity of an artistic investigation pursued with complete intellectual freedom.
An artist, theorist, and tireless experimenter, Severini was a central figure on the international art scene for more than sixty years. He distinguished himself as a genuine “man of dialogue”: between individuals and artistic languages, between the avant-garde and tradition, between representation and abstraction, and between theoretical rigor and intuitive impulse.
He moved boldly through Italian Futurism and Cubism, later embracing the “return to order” and the Neo-Cubist explorations of the postwar period. Throughout his career, he demonstrated a constant drive toward renewal, never satisfied with established formulas and always seeking new artistic possibilities.
