ITALIAN DRAWING OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY

curated by Fabio Benzi
22 novembre-13 dicembre 2018

In a chronological path, the exhibition unfolds a succession of sheets that trace the century through its greatest

“Through the drawing we grasp the nascent state of the idea and the true mastery of the artist, in a maximum synthesis of the meaning of art […] the primary mechanism of artistic thought, the matrix of creation”: with these words the curator Fabio Benzi introduces the exhibition of 20th century drawings that the historic Galleria Russo proposes to its collectors.

The exhibition offers a journey through the Italian design of the twentieth century that is distinguished by the extraordinary quality of the pieces chosen. While not pretending to provide a philological coverage of the amount of experiences of individual artists and the movements within which they moved, the exhibition offers a rich and evocative overview of Italian art of the past century, recognizable and excellent.

In a chronological path, the exhibition unfolds a succession of sheets that trace the century through its greatest exponents: a splendid portrait of Boccioni from 1916, some proofs of Balla between dynamism and studies on color, the classicism of a portrait by de Chirico, Sironi’s structured compositions, Cambellotti’s crepuscular images, Savinio’s surreal visions. And again Dottori, with his aero-painting studies, Casorati, Carrà, Severini, Morandi, Rosai, three very elegant papers by Modigliani, to continue along the century through the experience of the Roman School with Scipio and Mafai up to the names of Pirandello, Afro, Licini, Capogrossi and Guttuso and finally reach Schifano, Cucchi, Dorazio and Paladino who accompany the visitor in the midst of the most contemporary experiences.