Modern Italian Masters

Amedeo Porro Fine Arts is pleased to announce the opening of the Modern Italian Masters exhibition to be held in London at Trinity Fine Art at 15 Old Bond Street from 1 to 25 October 2019.

The works of some of the greatest Italian artists of the twentieth century will be exhibited: Giacomo Balla, Alberto Burri, Massimo Campigli, Giuseppe Capogrossi, Filippo de Pisis, Lucio Fontana, Arturo Martini, Medardo Rosso and Gino Severini.

An interesting and rare colored collage of the twenties is shown by Giacomo Balla entitled Linee spaziali; Alberto Burri will be present with an intriguing combustion on paper: Combustion T n. 12 executed around 1956 whilst by Massimo Campigli we will be able to admire one of his fascinating half-length oil portraits, in this case a charming Hope Gerson Weil, portrayed in 1936.

Surface 430 is the title of the playful composition by Giuseppe Capogrossi, an oil on horizontal canvas of 1961 played on pastel shades of pink, black, blue, yellow and red.

Still life. Tribute to Manet: flowers and book is the work exhibited by Filippo de Pisis, an oil on cardboard painted in 1926, a typical example of a romantic and intimate painting by the Ferrarese painter.

Two unusual works will be exhibited by Lucio Fontana under the customary title Spatial concept:

The first is an extraordinary “baroque” painting dated 1956 exhibited at the Venice Biennale in 1993. The work, of notable dimensions (cm. 134.5×100) that can be seen reproduced in full color on page 325 in the General Catalogue is one of the largest he made and falls into the category of works he called Barocchi, conceived between 1954 and 1957 where the material intensity of the oil and the mixed technique worked with wide swift hand movements, sometimes with random references to imaginary figures with the addition of the first “holes” on the canvas, suggest precisely the idea of ​baroque and playful art. Note the small number produced by Fontana of this type: there are only around a hundred of them.

The second work on display is part of the Gessi family, works also created between 1954 and 1958, rare examples of spatial experimentation of which there are also a mere hundred specimens. In this case Fontana uses the canvas to tear it more violently and then cover it with a pastel painting (hence the name “gessi”) where inside appears most often a protuberant formation.

By Arturo Martini, considered one of the greatest Italian sculptors active in the first half of the 1900s some of whose masterpieces can be admired in the major Italian museums, we exhibit three magnificent examples of his production in ceramics and terracotta. The Swarm of seagulls and the Elephant, two majolica from 1929/30 and a small mold terracotta with an unusual title The suicide of the romantic woman of 1927.

La Portinaia, a rare patinated and painted plaster by Medardo Rosso made in 1890 and coming from the Museum Rosso in Barzio.

Le balcon, spring in Paris is the title of one of Gino Severini’s three works on display.

The delightful tempera of 1931 describes a window taken from the inside that overlooks some Parisian buildings on a warm spring day where the objects dear to him are represented: the mandolin, a majolica vase, an earthenware vase and a pigeon. Still life with roses is the delicate tempera executed in 1919 where a still life formed by a bunch of grapes, a book, a vase with a white roses resting on a red cloth whose oval shape recalls Renaissance paintings. An intense Portrait of young lady, Portrait de jeunne femme is a pastel of 1908 that captures as only Severini was able to do, the face of a charming and alluring Parisienne lady.

The exhibition remains open to the public from 1 to 25 October 2019.