The Municipality of Ferrara will acquire the very important photographic fund of Gaetano Previati

The Municipality of Ferrara will acquire the valuable photographic collection of Gaetano Previati (Ferrara, 1852 - Lavagna, 1920), the great master of Italian pointillism: the entity has in fact won the ministerial call Strategy Photography 2020, with which the Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities and Tourism will guarantee co-financing, at about 50 percent, of the project. The cost of the operation, which was applied for the ministerial call by the Galleries of Modern Art at the instigation of Culture Councillor Marco Gulinelli, amounts to 82,000 euros (MiBACT is granting a contribution of 41,660 euros). Ferrara, with the candidacy of the acquisition of the Previati Fund, ranked first among the seven projects eligible for funding throughout Italy, out of a total of 37 submitted to the call.

Last November the administration, with a specific resolution of the council, had applied for the proposal to the Ministry. This is an important operation because the fund contains unpublished archival materials that testify to Previati’s use of photographic technique. The fund is currently in the possession of the heirs of Alberto Previati, son of the great Ferrarese painter. The collection includes a very important nucleus of 391 silver bromide gelatin plate negatives, some of them previously unpublished, relating to paintings and graphic works that have disappeared and escaped the literature on Previati until now, which the artist retouched in some cases; a valuable autograph notebook from the early twentieth century containing notes related to photographic shooting operations, which testifies to Previati’s specific interest in photography as a means of reproduction but also as an activity of aesthetic-creative elaboration; the painter’s camera; slides and negatives for cinematographs, clichés and photogravures.

“The ministry,” says Ferrara Mayor Alan Fabbri, “rewards the initiative for the rediscovery and study of a great artist of our territory. I am happy that Ferrara has distinguished itself, nationally, on this occasion as well. This result represents an award to a significant proposal and recognition to all those in our city who, on a daily basis, put passion, dedication, professionalism, work and time into the study and appreciation of our artistic and historical heritage. Congratulations to the Modern Art Galleries and thanks to Alderman Gulinelli.”

“Culture and art, in Ferrara, inaugurate 2021 with an achievement that encourages and rewards our proposals,” says Councillor Gulinelli. “We open the year with good news, after celebrating Previati with an exhibition at the Castle, opened last June, for the 100th anniversary of his death. One of Italy’s greatest Divisionist painters, Previati also produced valuable works in the field of photography. And it will be the Previati artist of photography that will emerge thanks to the acquisition of a fund that will bring to Ferrara, from the heirs, a treasure to be discovered and that will enrich the knowledge and the archive of works by an important and fundamental artist who projected the future and anticipated modernity.”

Pictured: Gaetano Previati

The Municipality of Ferrara will acquire the very important photographic fund of Gaetano Previati

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