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The book offers an original insight into Italian art of the 19th and 20th century, based on the artworks which became part of the collection of Fondazione Guido e Ettore in Turin over the first forty years of its activity, since 1982. It is divided into thematic chapters which span different epochs, to shed light on how artists addressed and articulated subjects such as the relationship with nature or the idea of monument throughout the generations, ranging from Pellizza da Volpedo to Alberto Burri, from Giorgio Morandi to Pino Pascali. The leitmotif threading the chapters is the twofold vision which is typical of modern Italian art, split between the attention to tradition (either ancient or modern) on one hand and the effort to break with it and open up a new language on the other. The cultural and civic commitment of Fondazione De Fornaris, as expressed in the relentless support to museums and public institutions, fully resonates with such a vision and results in the highest acknowledgement of what making a collection means. The act of collecting entails the effort to save the best of artistic expression, to position it in a vibrant dialogue with the present and to entrust its legacy to the future. Complying with such an endeavor, the book aims to emphasize the international relevance of modern Italian art, which is too often overlooked, by concentrating on themes which are still central to the cultural debate today on a global scale. Established in Turin in 1898, the Fondazione De Fornaris owns thousands of paintings, sculptures, installations, photographs and graphic collections (drawings, watercolours, engravings and architectural plans).
About the author
Francesco Guzzetti is assistant professor of Modern and contemporary art at the University of Florence. Specialised in Italian art from the post-war years to early 1980s and its relationship with that of the United States, he published several essays and curated exhibition both in Italy and the United States.
