From January 19 to March 2, 2025, the Centro Culturale Altinate San Gaetano in Padua will host theextensive retrospective dedicated to Silvana Weiller Romanin Jacur, Landscapes and Legends, curated by Nicola Galvan and Elisabetta Vanzelli. One hundred works dealing with the two main themes explored by Weiller since after World War II will be on display for the occasion. In the space of the Agora, the intimate and private theme of Jewish culture will find expression, which the artist reworks through original narrative formulas, characterized by enormous rolls of paper - some up to four meters long - animated by biblically derived episodes and characters.
These are previously unpublished works, with a fairy-tale and ironic tone, which have never before been exhibited, considering the familiar and domestic character for which they were conceived. Contextually, the balconies around the Agora will present scenarios of environmental derivation, with subjects referable to natural and urban elements, including in particular the countless views of Prato della Valle.
The exhibition intends to bear direct witness, on the one hand, to the places dearest to the artist’s personal vicissitudes, and on the other, to what she herself was able to experiment with throughout the second half of the twentieth century, in tune with the languages of the Avant-gardes and thanks to an intellectual depth that allowed her to range between more lyrical, or more abstract-geometric or gestural formulas.
“It is a great pleasure to dedicate such an extensive exhibition to Silvana Weiller, certainly one of the leading figures in the cultural and artistic life of our city from the immediate postwar period until her passing almost three years ago at the fine age of 100,” said Culture Councilor Andrea Colasio. “A painter, but also a poet and art critic whom we remember by also turning a spotlight on her no less important and quality artistic activity, that of drawings made for her children and others, which until now had remained in the family sphere. The City of Padua recognized her value and merits back in 1994 by awarding her the Seal of the City and in 2011 with a solo exhibition at the Gran Guardia entitled Paintings and Words. Silvana Weiller in her path as an artist went through different moments, from the years of figurative research to those of an informal and material painting always with the simplicity that distinguished her: ”it is like breathing, it is a natural fact, I write and paint.“ A fact that though experienced as a part of her own being, however, was not simple. In an interview, she explained, ”Painting becomes a conquest: it is tiring entry into a different world, the world of form, there where the contour becomes precise and confused by playing with new elements, there where making a form involves a chain of different relationships, linked to reality, confused with reality.“ I hope that thanks also to this exhibition, those who did not know her can discover her figure and talent.”
Venetian by birth and Milanese by training, Silvana Weiller was a fine artist and, at the same time, a cultured intellectual. She was the undisputed protagonist of the cultural life of Padua, a city that became her own after her marriage to Leo Romanin Jacur, a member of the local Jewish Community. They met in Switzerland, where both were refugees following the racial laws. In Venice, at a very young age, she became acquainted with the English painter Alis Levi, and in her home she had the opportunity to meet musicians, men of letters and painters.
A few years after Silvana’s birth, the Weiller family moved to Milan. In the fall of 1938, due to racial laws, she is forced to finish her studies at the “Jewish School of Via Eupili.” After the armistice of September 8, 1943, the family left Milan to take temporary refuge in Binasco, and from there to the Ossola Valley. Thanks to the help of partisans, the Weillers reach a Swiss assembly camp where, fortunately, they spend a relatively short time. In fact, their father Augustus obtains an assignment to teach law in Lausanne to the escaped students, and his wife and children are freed on the guarantee of a friend. Reaching the capital of Canton Vaud, Silvana enrolls in a Free Course in Nude, later earning a Diploma at the Ecole Cantonal d’Art and where she marries Leo Romanin Jacur. In 1945, when the war ended, the Weiller family returned to Italy and Silvana moved to Padua, where the Romanin Jacur family occupied an important role in the economic and political affairs of the town. Despite her family and social commitments, in Padua Silvana was able to devote herself to painting. Her first exhibition dates back to 1948, welcomed in the halls of Caffè Pedrocchi. Here, stimulated by her friend the poet Diego Valeri, she exhibited stage sketches: it was to be an increasingly intense activity, with dozens of important exhibitions, in public venues and private galleries.
Since the 1960s, the artist also brings out her passion for art criticism with interventions in the local newspaper and in important national art magazines. An all-round intellectual, she soon broadened her interest to literature, first as a critic for Il Sestante Letterario and then with her own poetry collections and translations of great foreign authors. In the same years she became a promoter of city cultural projects, also engaging in in-depth studies on the figure of women, including within the biblical context. In 1994 she was awarded The Seal of the City of Padua for her tireless commitment in the artistic and literary spheres, while in 2006 the Cultural Association Moderata Fonte promoted her to honorary membership.
Silvana Weiller, in the Padua of that time, was perhaps the only one who embodied a well-rounded intellectual figure.
Hours: Tuesday through Sunday from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.
Free admission.
A large retrospective exhibition on Silvana Weiller Romanin Jacur in Padua, with about a hundred works |
Warning: the translation into English of the original Italian article was created using automatic tools. We undertake to review all articles, but we do not guarantee the total absence of inaccuracies in the translation due to the program. You can find the original by clicking on the ITA button. If you find any mistake,please contact us.