In Venice, the still lifes of Picasso, Morandi and Parmiggiani compared

On the occasion of the 61st. International Art Exhibition - La Biennale di Venezia, the Istituzione Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa presents in Venice the exhibition Picasso, Morandi, Parmiggiani. Still Lifes, curated by Cécile Debray. The exhibition will be held from May 7 to July 25, 2026 in the Gallery of St. Mark’s Square, the Venetian institution’s main venue. The project is conceived and organized by Tornabuoni Arte, with the extraordinary participation of the Musée national Picasso-Paris and the scientific collaboration of the Fondazione Musei Civici di Venezia.

The exhibition brings together a selection of still lifes by Pablo Picasso, Giorgio Morandi and Claudio Parmiggiani, proposing a reflection on the way in which three artists belonging to different eras approached the representation of the object. The path begins with an essential and focused selection of works, built around the relationship between observation of reality and reconstruction of the image within the space of the atelier, a place where objects are arranged, interpreted and transformed into pictorial subjects.

Picasso’s works testify to the transformation of the still life genre in the context of Cubist and later research. Assemblages, bricolage, and deconstructions of the object contribute to the definition of a new visual language that reworks the traditional theme of memento mori. The exhibition includes fourteen masterpieces from the collections of the Musée national Picasso-Paris, documenting the Spanish artist’s interest in the object from the Cubist season through the mid-20th century.

Morandi’s canvases, from Italian and international public and private collections, enter into dialogue with those of Picasso. Among the works on display is a Cubist still life from 1914 conserved at the Centre Pompidou, a work that allows us to identify an initial parallel between the two artists’ research. The exhibition also includes some rarely seen works, such as a canvas by Morandi dated 1945-46, which will return to Venice for the first time since its presentation at the 31st Venice Biennale.

Alongside the paintings, the exhibition also presents a previously unseen corpus of objects from Morandi’s studio: jugs, vases and dried flowers used by the artist to construct his compositions. The nucleus offers a glimpse into the Bolognese artist’s working process and the system of patterns he developed through the collection, arrangement and sometimes painting of the objects themselves, precisely organized on the shelves of the atelier.

Comparison with Parmiggiani’s work introduces a contemporary perspective on the subject of still life. During his formative years, the artist frequented Morandi’s studio, a circumstance that helps explain certain affinities between their research. A monumental Delocazione made especially for the occasion is presented in the exhibition. The project also includes several sculptures from the artist’s studio, spanning the entire span of his production since the 1970s. Assemblages, reliefs and sculptures establish a thematic and methodological dialogue with both Morandi and Picasso, especially with regard to the relationship with the object and its transformation.

Through these works, the exhibition addresses issues related to the presence and disappearance of objects, proposing a contemporary reinterpretation of the theme of vanitas. The exhibition layout, conceived by Debray, builds formal and conceptual relationships among the three artists, inviting the public to reflect on the significance of still life as an artistic genre and as a tool for interrogating time, reality and the practice of art itself.

The project is part of the cycle of exhibitions organized by Tornabuoni Arte in Venice in recent years. After the monographic exhibitions dedicated to Alighiero Boetti, Emilio Isgrò and Alberto Burri, held at the Giorgio Cini Foundation in 2017 and 2019, the new exhibition continues the path started with On Fire in 2022, an exhibition that brought together modern and contemporary artists around the theme of fire as a tool of creation. The exhibition will be accompanied by an illustrated catalog published by Forma Edizioni, edited by Cécile Debray with the collaboration of Elizabeth de Bertier of Tornabuoni Arte. The volume includes contributions by Debray herself, Lorenzo Balbi, director of the Museum of Modern Art in Bologna (MAMbo), and Bruno Corà, president of the Burri Foundation.

In Venice, the still lifes of Picasso, Morandi and Parmiggiani compared

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