By Giorgio Di Marzo
With 110 works by 45 different Italian artists The British Museum, one of the greatest temples of culture in the world, from 1st February until 3rd June 2007 pays homage to Italy and some of its greatest modern and contemporary artists with an exhibition that surveys a hundred year of modern Italian printmaking. This is the first exhibition of its kind in Europe; most of the works belong to the British Museum itself via a donation by an anonymous donor, whilst others have been borrowed from the Estorick Collection, Tate Modern and the V&A. It is of major interest to consider that Italian artists such as Fattori, Morandi and Fontana, just to name a few, and Italian movements like Futurism, Metaphysical Painting and Arte Povera have contributed so much to the evolution of art. In some way art, after Italy’s independence, has changed thoroughly.
We have been accompanied through the exhibition by Martin Hopkinson, who was curator of prints at the Hunterian Art Gallery, University of Glasgow, from 1977 to 1997 and is now a freelance art critic and writer. In our videointerview Martin has highlighted some of the most important prints on display. Surely most of us have heard of names such as Giovanni Fattori, the first great printmaker of the era, and Giorgio Morandi, the greatest printmaker of the last century; and yet there are many more to discover like Umberto Boccioni, Luigi Russolo, Enrico Baj, Alberto Burri… each of these artists created his own milestone in printing, and this exhibition is not just an amazing collection of masterpieces: it is a travel through the history of Italian modern art; indeed, it is a travel into art.
The videointerview with the curator and the photographs of the exhibition are available on our website www.giorgiostudio.co.uk.
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