Ferrara, an exhibition-focus on Filippo De Pisis at the Pavilion of Contemporary Art.

In conjunction with the redevelopment works at Palazzo Massari, home of the Ferrara Galleries of Modern and Contemporary Art, the Galleries themselves and the Ferrara Arte Foundation are organizing, from December 22, 2018 to June 2, 2019, an exhibition-focus dedicated to the works of Filippo De Pisis (Ferrara, 1896 - Brugherio, 1956) and entitled De Pisis. The Poetry of the Moment: this is a rich body of works preserved in the “Filippo De Pisis” Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (also in Palazzo Massari), which, in order not to be hidden from the eyes of the public during the works in Palazzo Massari, will be the protagonists of the exhibition set up in the spaces of the Contemporary Art Pavilion.

Following research conducted on the Raimondi Archive kept at the University of Bologna, the exhibition presents a selection of letters, postcards and autographed texts that, from the 1920s to the 1950s, De Pisis sent to a fraternal friend, the Bolognese writer and critic Giuseppe Raimondi. This is a private and fascinating documentation, which offers an unprecedented context to the chronological reconstruction of the painter’s career. De Pisis’ ability to express the soul of nature, objects, people, and places (primarily Ferrara as a distant metaphysical enchantment) finds its foundation in literature, his favorite medium during his youth for filtering the surrounding reality. An expressive mode innate to his imagery that did not end even when he made, between his Roman apprenticeship and his move to Paris in the spring of 1925, the definitive transition to painting. Exemplary of this connection is Still Life with a Kingfisher (1925), where the Pascolian theme of remembrance is admirably depicted. While in the mysterious and suspended atmospheres of Socrates’ Onions and “marine still lifes,” made between 1927 and 1932, the poet-painter reconsiders his personal relationship with the metaphysics of De Chirico, whom he met in Ferrara in 1915.

In his mature years, it becomes preponderant for De Pisis to transcribe on canvas the pure emotions in front of the object of representation. Here are the figurative suggestions captured among the corners of the French metropolis become urban views(La Coupole, 1928) or still lifes of original conception(I pesci marci, 1928). But works meditated in the tranquility of the studio such as Gladiolus Electrocuted (1930) and with touching lyricism such as The Hare (1933) should also be mentioned. Two thematic sections intersect in the chronological journey. The first revolves around ephebic beauty, a theme incessantly transposed with pencils or brushes on the sheets of a very rich “diary for images.” In the other, on the other hand, an unprecedented dialogue is proposed between some beautiful still lif es by De Pisis and those, rare, made by Giovanni Boldini: a symbolic passage of witness between two generations and between two distant visions of painting making. De Pisis’s artistic activity closes with the rough and pale works dating back to his hospitalization in the Villa Fiorita clinic(The Rose in the Bottle, 1950; The Pears - Villa Fiorita, 1953), an environment ideally suggested in the closed and white space of the last small room on the upper floor to emphasize the secluded and melancholy dimension of the last stretch of his life.

The exhibition opens from Tuesday to Sunday from 9:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. and 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. Tickets: full price € 4.00, reduced price € 2.00 (young people from 18 to 30 years old Youngercard holders, over 65 years old, university students, groups of at least 15 people, Palazzo dei Diamanti exhibition ticket holders, conventioned categories, first and second grade teachers with ID), free under 18 years old, school groups, disabled people and their escorts, tour guides and journalists with ID, conventioned categories. For safety reasons, the exhibition is only partially accessible to the disabled. Info and reservations at 0532 244949, e-mail diamanti@comune.fe.it, and by visiting www.palazzodiamanti.it.

Pictured: Filippo De Pisis, I pesci marci (1928; oil on cardboard, 53.5 x 63.5 cm; Ferrara, Museo d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea "Filippo de Pisis." Donation Franca Fenga Malabotta).

Ferrara, an exhibition-focus on Filippo De Pisis at the Pavilion of Contemporary Art.

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