Tornabuoni Art presents the first-ever London exhibition of the Italian Novecento, the figurative art movement founded in 1922. Featuring over thirty works of art by leading Italian artists, such as Giorgio Morandi, Giorgio de Chirico, Felice Casorati, Giacomo Balla, Gino Severini and many others, this exhibition explores Italian art in the period between the two World Wars. Most of the works on display come from the Tornabuoni Art collection, with a loan from the Estorick Collection of Modern Italian Art in London.
This exhibition takes inspiration from the landmark 1926 exhibition “Prima Mostra del Novecento Italiano” in Milan, organised by the charismatic writer and curator Margherita Sarfatti, who launched the Novecento movement. In particular, the show looks at figurative art of this period through the three main themes of the original Novecento exhibition: still life, landscape and the representations of women. The artist Giorgio Morandi presented three works at the 1926 exhibition in Milan: a landscape, a portrait and a still life. Tornabuoni Art will display two Morandi’s still-lifes (1955 and 1962) and Landscape (1932). In addition, the show will feature other major works, including Balla’s Ballucecolormare (1924-25), De Chirico’s Still-life (1930) and Casorati’s Nude from the back (1939), an important figurative artist from Turin who is being rediscovered.
After World War I, Novecento artists sought to return to what they saw as the simplicity of the Italian pictorial tradition, as a kind of return to order after the chaos of war. The Novecento artists set themselves apart from Metaphysical artists, whom they saw as too intellectual, and adopted a more homely, earthy sensibility. No other show in London has ever looked before at the movement as a whole.
| Duration | 12 February 2020 - 18 April 2020 |
| Times | Monday to Friday 10:00 am - 6:00 pm Saturday 10:30 am - 5:30 pm or by appointment |
| Cost | Free |
| Venue | Tornabuoni Art |
| Address | 46 Albemarle Street, London, W1S 4JN |
| Contact | / info@tornabuoniart.com / www.tornabuoniart.com |