Milan’s Ramo Collection brings together outstanding works from some of the most important movements in twentieth-century Italian art, including images by Umberto Boccioni, Giorgio de Chirico, Lucio Fontana, Alighiero Boetti, Pino Pascali and many more.
Assembled by the late Milanese entrepreneur Giuseppe ‘Pino’ Rabolini, it is the largest private collection of modern and contemporary Italian art on paper, comprising almost 600 works. Who’s Afraid of Drawing? presents around 60 pieces from the collection, which is being shown in the UK for the first time. The exhibition explores drawing as more than just a preparatory activity, considering it as an art form in its own right.
Spanning the years 1900-1981, the show is organized thematically and considers the works in relation to the categories of abstraction, figuration, typographical experimentation and sculpture. It presents imagery created by artists better known for their works on canvas, such as Tancredi, Alberto Burri, Enrico Castellani and Domenico Gnoli, or for sculpture (Adolfo Wildt, Medardo Rosso, Marino Marini and Pietro Consagra). Artists including Manlio Rho, Bruno Munari and Piero Manzoni will be shown alongside works on paper by figures renowned for their Arte Povera installations, such as Mario Merz, Jannis Kounellis and Giovanni Anselmo.
