Rome, at the Central Institute for Graphics on display recent acquisitions, from Parmigianino to Kentridge

From December 17, 2024 to March 23, 2025, theIstituto Centrale per la Grafica in Rome is hosting the exhibition Acquisizioni. From Parmigianino to Kentridge, produced under the patronage of Fondazione ETS Italia patria della bellezza. The exhibition presents to the public a selection of about sixty works that have recently become part of the Institute’s collections, spanning more than 500 years of art history: drawings, matrices, engravings, photographs, videos and artist’s books will create a path that ranges from the ancient to the contemporary, reflecting the Institute’s commitment to the enhancement of its collections.

The works were acquired thanks to the Ministry of Culture’s 2021-2024 purchasing plan, through a variety of methods: compulsory purchases, which arise from the works being detained for export, private negotiations with proposals from collectors or galleries approved by ministerial commissions, public calls for proposals, and direct commissions to artists.

“This exhibition is a tale of a museum on the move, where many works have arrived in the last three years. Indeed, dozens of objects and works of art have come to the Institute, enriching our already extensive collection. The Acquisitions exhibition shows how, in various ways, the State can increase its national heritage; a great effort, including economic - there are works for over 3 million euros - in the belief that the development of a collection constitutes a value for the museum and for the whole community,” said Maura Picciau, director of the Institute.

In chronological order, opening the exhibition is a valuable drawing by Francesco Mazzola, known as Parmigianino, depicting a Dormition and Assumption of the Virgin (c. 1526-1527), acquired after an export detainment. The work was reproduced in 1802 by Francesco Rosaspina, who made an engraving of it, the plate of which is already in the Institute’s collections.

Other fine works follow, such as a view of the Temple of Vesta at Tivoli by Caspar Van Wittel (c. 1720) and a rare watercolor on paper by Giovanni Battista Lusieri depicting a Veduta di Roma (Castello lawns) from Ripetta (1780). From the 1820s, two albums of drawings by Vincenzo Camuccini and workshop document preparatory studies for I Fatti principali della vita di N.S. Gesù Cristo, while from 1880 are Venetian views by James McNeill Whistler.

For the nineteenth century, Giovanni Fattori’s etchings on zinc, a technique to which the artist devoted himself at an early age and as a self-taught artist, stand out, including Le cascine (1885-1888), and two prints of I guardiani di porci, in which two examples of the same etching can be compared, both printed in a rare, unpublished variant.

The twentieth century opens with an etching by Umberto Boccioni, Seated Man (1907), the only known example ever of one of the earliest etchings of the artist’s brief etching activity and never exhibited until now. By Egon Schiele, a Seated Male Nude (1910), the only work by the artist preserved in Italian museum collections, is on display, while a pencil drawing by Gustav Klimt , Mäda Primavesi, standing, wearing a coat (1912-13), a sketch for the oil portrait of the same name currently at the Metropolitan Museum in New York, is the first work by the artist to enter the Institute’s collections.

More experimental techniques include a cheramograph by Arturo Martini, La Beghina (1913), and eight drypoint plates by Mario Sironi, made in 1917. The exhibition also includes two watercolor drawings from the 1930s by Duilio Cambellotti, stopped for export, an installation by Fabrizio Clerici(Il naufragio dei pulcinelli, 1950) composed of seventeen tempera drawings on paper, and some matrices and positives from the Roman print shop 2RC Stamperia d’Arte, which first proposed engraving techniques to contemporary artists by starting solid collaborations with the greatest artists of the time. Alberto Burri’s Cretto C from 1971 (both the huge bronze matrix and its positive) and Alexander Calder’s matrices, Graphic Presence, composed of two zinc plates and three copper plates, among others, will be on display.

The contemporary section hosts two works by Tomaso Binga, Testament and Dattilocodice, a cycle of works dating from 1978 to 1982, two large-format works by Giuseppe Penone from the series Pelle di grafite from 2007 and 2009, and an entire wall will be dedicated to William Kentridge ’s Triumphs & Laments Frieze II (2006), acquired directly from the artist, a sketch on paper more than 11 meters long for the site-specific work of the same name created by the South African artist in 2006 on the walls of the Tiber.

Also very recent are Nunzio ’s works with a pastel on Japanese paper from 2019, the installation Bestiary of the Other World with eight drawings etched on graphite carbon paper and a video animation by Marta Roberti from 2021, Silvia Cini’s work, Avant que nature meure, from 2023, and finally a graphite and sanguine drawing on paper by Ciprian Mureşan from 2024.

As for photography, there are black and white shots by Ghitta Carell, six photographic prints by Bruno Miniati with views of the city of Livorno, a 1959 portfolio by Paul Strand, an album with thirteen shots by Lisetta Carmi from 1962, and Guido Guidi’s Preganziol series.

Finally, the exhibition devotes ample space to artist’s books, another sector of the Institute’s vast collections, which will be enriched with some valuable and unique pieces including Illustration of the book of Job, an 1826 illustrated book by Willam Blake with 21 engraved plates. Artist’s books include the legendary Classifying the Thousand Longest Rivers in the World by Alighiero Boetti and Anne Marie Sauzeau, also known as Thousand Rivers. The book, from 1977, comes with a precious tapestry-embroidered cover depicting a celebrated conceptual work created by four hands by Boetti and his wife, Anne Marie Sauzeau. By Giuseppe Penone Les Bois Sacré du Couvent de La Tourette of 2022, dedicated to the architecture of Le Corbusier, by Nunzio Between Five and Seven.ΠΕΝΤΕ ΜΕ ΕΦΤΑ, from 2003, an artist’s book with three woodcuts and four etchings accompanied by a poem and a short story by Ersi Sotiropoulos, and, from the same year, Stories on Board, an artist’s book with thirteen etchings by Piero Pizzi Cannella.

The exhibition will be accompanied by a catalog published by Dario Cimorelli Editore.

For info: https://istitutocentraleperlagrafica.cultura.gov.it/

Hours: Tuesday through Sunday from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.

Free admission.

Image: Duilio Cambellotti, The Danaids (ca. 1950; pencil and watercolor on paper, 62 x 105 cm)

Rome, at the Central Institute for Graphics on display recent acquisitions, from Parmigianino to Kentridge

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