CONSTELLATIONS. Italian Art 1915 – 1960. From the collections of Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena and Cesare Brandi

CONSTELLATIONS. Italian Art 1915 – 1960. From the collections of Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena and Cesare Brandi

The exhibition presents, in nine sections, a journey through Italian art in the period between the years of the Great War and the early Sixties: from the “Novecento” to Deco, from the “Italiens de Paris” to fascist propaganda art, from the Roman School to realism, abstractionism, and Informal art.

The Monte dei Paschi di Siena Collection and the Brandi Collection preserve authentic masterpieces from this half century, capable of tracing the development — certainly not linear and scattered with contradictions, detours, and heretical figures — that runs from figuration to its dissolution: just to mention the names of Ferrazzi, Andreotti, Carrà, Sironi, Donghi, De Pisis, Severini, Campigli, Morandi, Rosai, Viani, Levi, Mafai, Manzù, Marini, Guttuso, Afro, Scialoja, Turcato, Burri, all artists represented with works of primary importance. Along with the great names of twentieth-century Italian art, a substantial selection of Sienese artists and, to a lesser extent, Tuscan artists will also be exhibited: not in an impossible and useless competition with the recognized “masters,” but in an open and sometimes surprising dialogue.

Italian art of the last century is largely characterized by the coexistence of production focused in major centers and its original dissemination in smaller centers: constellations, indeed, of an interconnected and dialectical art system even in its most individual and distinctive manifestations. There will also be an attempt to reconstruct the events related to the acquisitions of the works in the Monte dei Paschi Collection, still unclear in relation to the long history of contemporary art collecting by the Sienese institution. An exhibition, therefore, that, in addition to presenting works of the highest quality of Italian Novecento, also aims to offer a new scientific contribution to the knowledge of Sienese art and collecting of the last century.

The exhibition, promoted by the Municipality of Siena, Fondazione Antico Ospedale Santa Maria della Scala, Fondazione Monte dei Paschi di Siena, Musei Nazionali di Siena, and the University of Siena, is produced by Fondazione Antico Ospedale Santa Maria della Scala and Opera Laboratori.