MARIO SIRONI
A large and in-depth retrospective retraces the work of Mario Sironi sixty years after his death. “Mario Sironi. Sintesi e grandiosità” is curated by Elena Pontiggia and Anna Maria Montaldo, director of the Museo del Novecento, in collaboration with Andrea Sironi-Strausswald (Mario Sironi Association, Milan) and Romana Sironi (Mario Sironi Archive of Romana Sironi, Rome).
The 110 works on display reconstruct the entire artistic career of Sironi: from the youthful symbolist season to adherence to futurism; from his original interpretation of metaphysics in 1919 to the classical moment of the Italian twentieth century; from the expressionist crisis of 1929-30 to the monumental painting of the 1930s; until the Second World War and the Apocalypse painted shortly before his death. In fact, some masterpieces that have not appeared in a Sironian anthology for almost half a century are exhibited (the fascinating "Pandora", 1921-1922; "Paese nella valle", 1928; "Case e Alberi", 1929; "L'abbeverata", 1929-30), and others completely unpublished.
Widely represented in the exhibition is the cycle of urban landscapes, Sironi's most famous theme, which acquires intensity after his arrival in Milan in 1919 and expresses both the drama of the modern city and a powerful will to build, in every sense. Among these the well-known "Sintesi di paesaggio urbano", 1921; "La Cattedrale", 1921; "Paesaggio urbano con tram" 1925-28, from the Museo del Novecento, exhibited at the 1928 Venice Biennale; "la Periferia" of 1943. A large group of works, however, testifies Sironi as an interpreter of the human figure as well: the Pierfranceschiano "Nudo" of 1923, a favorite of Margherita Sarfatti; the mysterious "Donna con vaso" from 1924; the "Pescatore", 1925; "La fata della Montagna", 1928; the "Niobide" of 1931, and the painful "Lazzaro", 1946, where, for the first time in the thousand-year iconography of the subject, Sironi paints a Lazarus who does not rise again, symbol of the collapse of all his ideas, starting with fascism in he had believed.
Monumental masterpieces such as the luminous "Vittoria alata", the gigantic study for the main hall of the Sapienza University of Rome, the visionary "Condottiero a cavallo" (all made in 1935) and the powerful preparatory study, almost six meters long, of the "Giustizia Corporativa "(1937-38), testify to his link to mural painting in the Thirties, to which ample space is dedicated in the exhibition itinerary.
The "journey" in Sironi's art comes to an end in the last rooms that document the artist's dramatic final years, also tormented by the loss of his daughter Rossana, who took her own life in 1948 at the age of eighteen.
Numerous loans from important museums such as the Pinacoteca di Brera, Ca' Pesaro and the Guggenheim Foundation in Venice, the Mart in Trento and Rovereto and various private collections that have allowed the masterpieces of the Master to be brought together. The exhibition continues in the spaces of the Museo del Novecento on the fourth floor and in some rooms dedicated to him in the Boschi Di Stefano House Museum.
A prestigious catalog, created by the Ilisso Publishing House, accompanies the exhibition. The volume, in addition to the introductory essay by Anna Maria Montaldo, contains an extensive essay and analytical sheets of all the works of Elena Pontiggia, a scholar of the artist and author of her first biography ("Sironi. The greatness of art, the tragedies della storia", 2015), as well as the insights by Fabio Benzi on Sironian futurism, and by Maria Fratelli, director of the Boschi Di Stefano House Museum, who explores Sironi's relationship with collectors Antonio and Marieda Boschi with unpublished letters.
The exhibition, like all the exhibits in the Museo del Novecento, was born from an original scientific project capable of restoring an unprecedented reading of the artist's work and human life.
“Mario Sironi. Sintesi e grandiosità" is part of "La Bella Estate", the summer cultural program promoted by the Municipality of Milan which, until 21 September, will offer the Milanese and visitors to the city a rich calendar of artistic, cultural, sporting, recreational and of free time.
The 110 works on display reconstruct the entire artistic career of Sironi: from the youthful symbolist season to adherence to futurism; from his original interpretation of metaphysics in 1919 to the classical moment of the Italian twentieth century; from the expressionist crisis of 1929-30 to the monumental painting of the 1930s; until the Second World War and the Apocalypse painted shortly before his death. In fact, some masterpieces that have not appeared in a Sironian anthology for almost half a century are exhibited (the fascinating "Pandora", 1921-1922; "Paese nella valle", 1928; "Case e Alberi", 1929; "L'abbeverata", 1929-30), and others completely unpublished.
Widely represented in the exhibition is the cycle of urban landscapes, Sironi's most famous theme, which acquires intensity after his arrival in Milan in 1919 and expresses both the drama of the modern city and a powerful will to build, in every sense. Among these the well-known "Sintesi di paesaggio urbano", 1921; "La Cattedrale", 1921; "Paesaggio urbano con tram" 1925-28, from the Museo del Novecento, exhibited at the 1928 Venice Biennale; "la Periferia" of 1943. A large group of works, however, testifies Sironi as an interpreter of the human figure as well: the Pierfranceschiano "Nudo" of 1923, a favorite of Margherita Sarfatti; the mysterious "Donna con vaso" from 1924; the "Pescatore", 1925; "La fata della Montagna", 1928; the "Niobide" of 1931, and the painful "Lazzaro", 1946, where, for the first time in the thousand-year iconography of the subject, Sironi paints a Lazarus who does not rise again, symbol of the collapse of all his ideas, starting with fascism in he had believed.
Monumental masterpieces such as the luminous "Vittoria alata", the gigantic study for the main hall of the Sapienza University of Rome, the visionary "Condottiero a cavallo" (all made in 1935) and the powerful preparatory study, almost six meters long, of the "Giustizia Corporativa "(1937-38), testify to his link to mural painting in the Thirties, to which ample space is dedicated in the exhibition itinerary.
The "journey" in Sironi's art comes to an end in the last rooms that document the artist's dramatic final years, also tormented by the loss of his daughter Rossana, who took her own life in 1948 at the age of eighteen.
Numerous loans from important museums such as the Pinacoteca di Brera, Ca' Pesaro and the Guggenheim Foundation in Venice, the Mart in Trento and Rovereto and various private collections that have allowed the masterpieces of the Master to be brought together. The exhibition continues in the spaces of the Museo del Novecento on the fourth floor and in some rooms dedicated to him in the Boschi Di Stefano House Museum.
A prestigious catalog, created by the Ilisso Publishing House, accompanies the exhibition. The volume, in addition to the introductory essay by Anna Maria Montaldo, contains an extensive essay and analytical sheets of all the works of Elena Pontiggia, a scholar of the artist and author of her first biography ("Sironi. The greatness of art, the tragedies della storia", 2015), as well as the insights by Fabio Benzi on Sironian futurism, and by Maria Fratelli, director of the Boschi Di Stefano House Museum, who explores Sironi's relationship with collectors Antonio and Marieda Boschi with unpublished letters.
The exhibition, like all the exhibits in the Museo del Novecento, was born from an original scientific project capable of restoring an unprecedented reading of the artist's work and human life.
“Mario Sironi. Sintesi e grandiosità" is part of "La Bella Estate", the summer cultural program promoted by the Municipality of Milan which, until 21 September, will offer the Milanese and visitors to the city a rich calendar of artistic, cultural, sporting, recreational and of free time.
