The exhibition “Marinetti chez Marinetti” curated by Maurizio Calvesi with critical text in the catalog by Beatrice Buscaroli offers for the first time to the public more than forty works from the private collection of Filippo Tommaso Marinetti. Among the artists on display are Luigi Russolo, Tullio Crali, Fortunato Depero, Ardengo Soffici, Rougena Zátková, Antonio Marasco, Gino Galli, Renato Di Bosso, and Mino delle Site, to name but a few, who offer a vast and high quality overview of twentieth-century Italian art and among whom stands out the famous painting by the master
of Aeropittura Gerardo Dottori, The Marinetti Family, one of the most significant works of Futurism.
Other works on display that belonged to the father of the Futurist movement and are of great art-historical significance include Giacomo Balla’s portrait of Benedetta, Rougena Zátková’s famous portrait of Marinetti Sole Marinetti, the two works by Benedetta Ironia and Luci + rumori di treno notturno, the wounded Marinetti by brothers Francesco and Pasqualino Cangiullo, and some famous parolibere plates by Filippo Tommaso Marinetti himself. “From the instantaneousness of a very fast gesture, a thought fixed as it gushes forth, and becomes movement and reality (the parolibere), to the solemnity of a canvas destined to remain, as indeed it remains, Marinetti appears. Even from an imperfect perfection, or from an unfinished score: this handful of papers would be enough to tell the story of the man who transformed Italy, made it and unmade it, brutalized it, infected it, enlisted it” (B. Buscaroli).
Works from other important collections are also on display: Umberto Boccioni’s Portrait of Mrs. Cragnolini Fanna from the collection of Margherita Sarfatti, two important paintings by Giacomo Balla coming directly from Balla’s home, Balfiore: Roses and Petunias and two significant drawings by Carlo Erba , Portrait of his mother Judith and Portrait of Filippo Tommaso Marinetti.
