On display: 61 works from the mid-19th century to the 1970s
There is an exhibition that is an absolute must-see, not only for art enthusiasts but for anyone who loves to immerse themselves in the narrative of painting and penetrate its deepest meaning, beyond labels and stereotypes. “Da Picasso a van Gogh”, held at the Museo Santa Caterina in Treviso and curated by Marco Goldin, gathers paintings from the Toledo Museum of Art (U.S.A - Ohio) while the institution undergoes renovation.
Among the 61 works - ranging from 1846-47 (The Stone Breakers by Jean-François Millet) to 1970 (Ocean Park No. 32 by Richard Diebenkorn, a fascinating piece already featured in the great 1997 retrospective at the Whitney Museum) - there are several memorable highlights. These works allow us to understand the unfolding of painting in Europe and America: the shared perspectives, the influences, and the exchange of experiences that intertwined and intensified between the two continents, mutually nourishing one another.
Before our eyes, paintings that stand as milestones in the history of art
Communication needs, likely tied to public appeal, led to a title highlighting two names that would suggest a period restricted to just under twenty years (between 1890 and 1909). In truth, the river we see flowing before us is much wider, spanning one hundred and twenty years and featuring paintings that are true milestones. In addition to those already mentioned, the roster includes Beckmann, Bolotowsky, Bonnard, Braque, Caillebotte, Cézanne, de Chirico, R. Delaunay, Fantin-Latour, Feininger, Gauguin, Hopper, Hofmann, Klee, Léger, Matisse, Modigliani, Mondrian, Monet, Moholy-Nagy, Morandi, Nicholson, Renoir, Sheeler, and Vuillard.
This selection demonstrates how the exhibition offers not only a chance to witness key turning points in American painting (often less familiar to the general public) but also makes it clear - through the sheer power of the works to speak - how ahistorical and pernicious it is to think of severing a culture that has so deeply permeated both continents, especially at a time when relations between Europe and the U.S. are wavering.
Featuring masters such as Braque, Cézanne, de Chirico, Mondrian, and Moholy-Nagy, among others
Finally, a necessary return to Diebenkorn: a towering artist, little known in Italy despite his presence at the American Pavilion of the Venice Biennale in 1968 and 1978. An explorer of color and an exquisite draftsman, he navigated the realms of both abstraction and figuration. For him, these were reconcilable, as he once wrote: his aim was to “alter, change what I had in front of me, by subtraction or juxtaposition or the overlapping of different ideas”.
Among the sponsors of the exhibition, the Lucchetta brothers, Antonio, Fiorenzo, Gaspare, Giancarlo of Euromobil Group.
