Naples, an exhibition at Gallerie d'Italia celebrates the Neapolitan city's Art Nouveau style

Opening September 25, 2020 at the Gallerie d’Italia - Palazzo Zevallos Stigliano is the exhibition Napoli Liberty. N’aria ’e primmavera, curated by Luisa Martorelli and Fernando Mazzocca, open to the public until January 24, 2021.

More than sixty works, including paintings, sculptures, jewelry and various manufactures, will be on display to give an understanding of the spread of the modernist style and the original features of art in Naples in the period between 1889 and 1915.

The exhibition kicks off with a room devoted to paintings from Felice Casorati’s stay in Naples, anticipating the works exhibited in the following rooms by the protagonists of the avant-garde movement, called the Secession of the 23, which was born in 1909 at the behest of Edgardo Curcio, Francesco Galante, Edoardo Pansini, Raffaele Uccella and Eugenio Viti, along with sculptors Costantino Barbella, Filippo Cifariello and Saverio Gatto.

During the Art Nouveau season, the applied arts that complemented the major arts occupied a prominent role. In this sphere, Filippo Palizzi’s La fontana degli Aironi (1887) will be exhibited.

In the early twentieth century, in the Museo Scuola Officina (now the Museo Artistico Industriale), the masters and students of the workshops of the Officina della Ceramica e Stipetteria began to produce objects in tune with the manufactures exhibited at the Universal Expositions and, in line with modern Art Nouveau canons, produced floral decorations and “whiplash” lines typical of the new style.

Also on display will be two works by Almerico Gargiulo, a master-carver who worked inlaid wood following rounded lines, in the manner of Carlo Bugatti, as part of the Sorrento School of Art, known for the production of inlaid furniture

Also on display will be manufactures of the highest quality, in the field ofprecious goldsmithing and the manufacture of semi-precious stones (coral, mother-of-pearl and tortoiseshell), a genre in which Naples is first in Europe. These precious objects include jewelry by Emanuele Centonze, Gaetano Jacoangeli, Vincenzo Miranda and the Manifattura Ascione, famous throughout Europe for diadems, brooches and clasps. Also represented will be the Torre del Greco School of Coral, which was distinguished for its refined, eclectic and modern workmanship of semi-precious stones, applied to objects of functional value, much in demand on the market, such as buttons, jewelry boxes and pettenesse.
Central to this section is Vincenzo Migliaro’s painting Seductions (1906), which depicts a window display of Jacoangeli’s jewelry store, in which a female figure is seen letting her intense emotionality seep out in front of those objects of desire.

The exhibition closes with a section devoted to posters and advertising graphics, a field in which Naples is among the major Italian centers. The art of the billboard became an easy dissemination and propaganda tool adopted for the industries that arose in those years, such as, for example, the Mele department stores located in the Palace of the Bourgeoisie, the Miccio Kiosk and the Cirio factories. Thus, works by nationally and internationally renowned artists such as Leonetto Cappiello, Marcello Dudovich, Vincenzo Migliaro, Pietro Scoppetta and many others will be on display: advertising posters, front pages of Il Mattino di Napoli, as well as covers made by Ricordi Graphic Arts or Editore Bideri, the famous printer of musical periodicals dedicated to Piedigrotta, a ritual appointment of Neapolitan song.

“The exhibition celebrates the extraordinary elegance of Art Nouveau in Naples,” stressed Giovanni Bazoli, Chairman Emeritus of Intesa Sanpaolo, “reminding us of the uniqueness of the national heritage, an indispensable resource of our country. There can be no reconstruction, moral, social and economic recovery without the beauty that art and culture can bestow. This initiative confirms the strong bond that unites the Bank with Naples: a bond that the Gallerie d’Italia in thirteen years of intense activity has been able to strengthen, contributing to enrich the cultural offerings in the city.”

The works on display dialogue with the Palace Hall and its decorations, among the most original examples of Art Nouveau taste in Naples.

For info: gallerieditalia.com

Hours: Tuesday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m., Saturday and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.

Tickets: Joint exhibition and permanent collections ticket: Full € 5, Reduced € 3. Free for convention members, schools, under 18s, Intesa Sanpaolo Group customers.

Image: Giuseppe De Curtis, Dream in Venice (1890; tempera on canvas, 130 x 145 cm; Intesa Sanpaolo Collection). Ph.Credit Claudio Giusti.

Naples, an exhibition at Gallerie d'Italia celebrates the Neapolitan city's Art Nouveau style

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.