From rediscovered Klimt to secret masters: a valuable exhibition at Ricci Oddi Gallery

The Ricci Oddi Gallery of Modern Art in Piacenza is hosting until January 9, 2022 the exhibition Klimt and the “secret” masters of Ricci Oddi, the second stage of Progetto Klimt, a two-year scientific program promoted by the Gallery’s Board of Directors.

Curated by Elena Pontiggia, in collaboration with the Marussig Archive for the Marussig section, the exhibition stems from the desire to raise awareness of the work of some of the great masters of twentieth-century Italian art present in the museum’s collection with a single work.

“The adjective ’secrets’ in the title should dutifully be put in quotation marks,” the curator declares."Carrà, Casorati, Marussig, Tosi, and Usellini are painters who are now historicized and have a secure place in the history of twentieth-century art, even if some of them are less well known to the general public. However, each of them is unique in the Ricci Oddi Gallery, as is Klimt’s Portrait of a Lady. Hence the need to juxtapose that unicum with a small group of other paintings."

"With an intelligent and stimulating proposal, this exhibition, conceived and curated by Elena Pontiggia, intended to rekindle attention on the rediscovered Klimt and on five 20th-century masterpieces by Carrà, Casorati, Marussig, Tosi and Usellini, destined to dialogue with a series of their other paintings from private collections. All this to put them in context and better explain the intentions that have animated Ricci Oddi over time," added Fernando Mazzocca, president of the Ricci Oddi Gallery.

Starting with Gustav Klimt’s Portrait of a Lady, which has returned to the museum’s rooms after more than 20 years thanks to its recent discovery, and the Portrait of an Old Man (1917) by the same author, exhibited only once before, the exhibition dives into the poetics of five Italian artists: two of the greatest Italian landscape painters of the 20th century, Arturo Tosi (1871-1956) and Carlo Carrà (1881-1966), along with three exponents of magic realism, Pietro Marussig (1879-1937), Felice Casorati (1883-1963) and Gianfilippo Usellini (1903-1971).

Thus, Tosi’s Agro di Rovetta (1924), Usellini’s Natura morta (1926), Carrà’s I pagliai (1929), Marussig’s Natura morta (1933) and Casorati’s Donne in barca (1933-34) are on view to the public: works preserved in the Ricci Oddi Gallery and which on this occasion have been placed side by side in an ad hoc designed setting for a selection of paintings by the five artists.

Among the works on display are also Nudo alcoolico (1895) by Tosi, a singular anticipation of a search for sign, gesture and matter that was already substantially informal; Le lavandaie (1934) by Usellini, exhibited at the Rome Quadriennale in 1935; Casorati’s Ritratto di signora in nero (1924), a masterpiece of the artist’s magic realism, on loan from the Eni Museum in Rome, and the previously unseen Cucitrice nella soffitta (1931), never exhibited until now; Carrà’s Crepuscolo (1921), a work-manifesto of the artist’s primitivist season; and Marussig’s Nel mio giardino (1916), from the collection of Milan’s Permanente.

For more info: www.riccioddi.it

Image: Gustav Klimt, Portrait of a Lady (1916-1918; oil on canvas, 68 x 55 cm; Piacenza, Galleria Ricci Oddi)

From rediscovered Klimt to secret masters: a valuable exhibition at Ricci Oddi Gallery

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