Pistoia Musei exhibits Giorgio de Chirico's Mannequins by the Sea

From April 22, Pistoia Musei ’ Collections of the Twentieth Century will host Mannequins by the Sea, among Giorgio de Chirico ’s most famous works marking the link between his classical and metaphysical periods. The artist returns to the exhibition in Pistoia after 40 years, as part of the project In visita a Palazzo de’ Rossi, with the support of Fondazione Caript and the collaboration of Intesa Sanpaolo.

The 1926 work, which will remain on view until Oct. 22, is compared in the exhibition with the portrait head of Faustina Maggiore, an important work of Roman art from the second century AD, formerly housed in the Ancient Palace of the Bishops and now on public display again. Both works in dialogue come from the collections of Intesa Sanpaolo.

Thus kicks off the second appointment of In visita curated by Monica Preti, Annamaria Iacuzzi and Cristina Taddei, a project that provides for thetemporary exhibition of one or more works of art of national and international scope within the permanent path Collezioni del Novecento. The aim is to create moments of in-depth study, dialogue and comparison on authors, themes and cultural currents of the last century and the present. In the first appointment, curators Monica Preti and Annamaria Iacuzzi had compared two Kore by Fausto Melotti and Pomona by Marino Marini.

At the height of his success, contested between two of the greatest Parisian gallery owners, Giorgio de Chirico made Manichini in riva al mare (Mannequins by the Sea) during his second stay in the French capital, a work exemplary of the artist’s ability to reinvent himself by introducing novelties in technique and method. By dwelling on the context of the work’s creation and the relationship with the dealer Paul Guillaume, who purchased it, a useful framework for understanding the Classical taste prevalent in Paris at the end of the 1920s and De Chirico’s role in this context is outlined.

It is precisely here that the link with the head of Faustina Maggiore, purchased by the Cassa di Risparmio di Pistoia e Pescia in 1983 from Gottfried and Brigitte Fischer, which later became part of the Intesa Sanpaolo collections and was formerly kept in theAntico Palazzo dei Vescovi. The Roman marble was the subject of study by Raissa Gurevič, De Chirico’s companion and later wife precisely during his Parisian years. The couple separated in the 1930s, and it was then that Gurevič decided to move to Rome to devote herself to archaeology, a discipline to which she had become acquainted during her years in Paris. It was she who first documented the head of Faustina Maggiore within the volume Scavi di Ostia IX. Portraits II (1977) describing her “at a ripe age with considerable signs of fatigue and with a veil of melancholy in her relaxed and thin face. The sad crease at the corners of the half-closed mouth, the eyes deeply sunken into the orbit, make the gaze more pained than distracted.”

The second episode of In visita juxtaposes the two works in an evocative space inspired by dechirican metaphysical scenarios. In visita | Giorgio de Chirico is also the title of the publication presented for the occasion, edited by Monica Preti, Annamaria Iacuzzi and Cristina Taddei, with a contribution by Giovanni Casini and published by Gli Ori. The catalog offers an opportunity to explore themes such as De Chirico’s second Parisian period, Raissa Gurevič’s relationship with the ancient, the “contacts” existing between the artist’s poetics and some of the works present in the stable Collezioni del Novecento itinerary and his presence between Montecatini Terme and Pistoia between the 1950s and 1970s.

On the occasion of the opening, a concert of metaphysical music is scheduled for Saturday, April 22, at 5 p.m., in collaboration with the Amici della Musica Association of Pistoia, by internationally renowned pianist Antonio Ballista, featuring music by Alfredo Casella, Igor Stravinsky and Erik Satie, among others. The concert has already sold out and reservations are no longer possible, while the exhibition halls will be free admission for the duration of the opening.

Visiting is a project of Pistoia Musei carried out as part of the stable exhibition Collections of the Twentieth Century. The second event, curated by Monica Preti, Annamaria Iacuzzi and Cristina Taddei, is realized with the support of Fondazione Caript and the collaboration of Intesa Sanpaolo.

Image: Installation view In visita | Giorgio de Chirico, Pistoia, 2023 ©Lorenzo Marianeschi. Courtesy of Pistoia Musei.

Pistoia Musei exhibits Giorgio de Chirico's Mannequins by the Sea

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