The Ricci Oddi Gallery of Modern Art announces the acquisition of a Giuseppe Ricci Oddi letter copial containing 172 letters dated from August 1929 to February 1931. The register, which collects copies of the collector’s correspondence, was spotted on the antiquarian market and purchased thanks to the support of the Banca di Piacenza, allowing the document to return to the institution that bears his name and represents its natural context of preservation. In fact, the letters are placed in the years immediately preceding the Gallery’s inauguration on October 11, 1931, a period in which Ricci Oddi was engaged both in the expansion of his own collection and in the construction of the building destined to house it. The architectural design had been entrusted to Giulio Ulisse Arata.
Among the recipients of the correspondence appear prominent personalities of the artistic and cultural scene of the time. In addition to Arata, they include artists Felice Carena, Amedeo Bocchi, Giuseppe Graziosi and Aldo Carpi, as well as gallery owners Lino Pesaro and Luigi Scopinich. The missives allow us to reconstruct a network of relationships that flanked Ricci Oddi in the process of defining the collection and in the transformation of the private collection into a public institution. Except for a nucleus of thirteen letters addressed to Giulio Ulisse Arata, already published by Giancesare Schippisiin an essay that appeared in 2017 in Bollettino Storico Piacentino, the remaining corpus is unpublished. The material constitutes a relevant source for the in-depth study of the figure of Giuseppe Ricci Oddi and for the study of the dynamics that led to the birth of the Gallery. The letters help to delineate more precisely the system of advisers and interlocutors to whom the collector turned in the decisive years preceding the opening to the public.
The documentation also reveals Ricci Oddi’s personal involvement in the museum project, which appears to be marked by intense and sometimes painful participation. The letter copy will be presented to the public on Friday, February 27, at 6 p.m. at the Ricci Oddi Gallery of Modern Art, in a free-entry meeting coordinated by director Lucia Pini. Gallery president Massimo Toscani, Piacenza Bank president Giuseppe Nenna and State Archives director Anna Riva will speak. During the meeting, actor Nicola Cavallari will read a selection of letters from the register.
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| A letter copial by Giuseppe Ricci Oddi enriches the Modern Art Gallery of Piacenza |
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