Francesco Caglioti (born in 1964) has been full professor of History of Medieval Art at the Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa since 2019. He was previously assistant professor of History of Art Criticism at the same Scuola (1993-2001), associate professor of History of Early Modern Art at the Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II (2001-2006), and full professor of History of Early Modern Art at the same university (2006-2019). He has written mainly on sculpture in Italy from the 13th to the 17th century, focusing on artists, patrons, original exhibition contexts, the original functions of objects and monuments, their archival and literary sources, and their material and critical fortunes to the present day. He has published many new documents and works in connection with such masters as Lorenzo Ghiberti, Donatello, Paolo Uccello, Desiderio da Settignano, Verrocchio, Leonardo and Michelangelo. His two-volume study Donatello e i Medici. Storia del ‘David’ e della ‘Giuditta’ (Florence, 2000) was named «Book of the Year 2000» by «Apollo – The International Art Magazine» (London). In 2019 he curated together with Andrea De Marchi (University of Florence) the exhibition Verrocchio, Master of Leonardo at the Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi and the Museo Nazionale del Bargello in Florence. In 2022 he curated the exhibition Donatello, il Rinascimento (Donatello: the Renaissance) at these two same venues (awarded «exhibition of the year» by the periodicals «Apollo – The International Art Magazine», «Il Giornale dell’arte / The Art Newspaper», and «Finestre sull’arte»). In the same year he co-curated with Neville Rowley (chief curator), Laura Cavazzini and Aldo Galli the exhibition Donatello. Erfinder der Renaissance at the Gemäldegalerie, Staatliche Museen, Berlin.

francesco.caglioti@sns.it

Donatello Exhibitions in 2022: In Response to Austrian and German Academia’s Gripes

This essay dwells at some length on twelve problems in the current academic debate on Donatello raised by three German scholars (Volker Herzner, Ulrich Pfisterer and Artur Rosenauer) in connection with the catalogues for the three major exhibitions devoted to the artist and his work in 2022-2023 (Florence, Berlin and London), with a particular focus on the first two (2022). I review those issues in the order listed below, producing fresh arguments and, in several cases, also new evidence and documentary interpretations: (1) Donatello’s paternity of the marble David in the Museo del Bargello (Florence); (2) Donatello’s paternity of the wooden Crucifix in Santa Croce (Florence) and of the Man of Sorrows on the Porta della Mandorla in Santa Maria del Fiore; (3) Donatello’s activity as a coroplast and the catalogue of his youthful terracotta Madonnas; (4) Donatello’s paternity of the St. Peter in Orsanmichele; (5) Donatello’s paternity of the small bronze Dancing Spiritello in the Bargello, fashioned in connection with the project for the Baptismal Font in Siena; (6) the 15th century authenticity of the small bronze David in the Bode-Museum in Berlin (and the attribution of the marble Martelli David in Washington to Desiderio da Settignano); (7) Donatello’s paternity of the Martelli St. John the Baptist in the Bargello; (8) Donatello’s paternity of the so-called Carafa Head in Naples; (9) Donatello’s paternity of the bronze Bearded Head in the Bargello; (10) the reconstruction both of the original aspect of the high altar in the Basilica of St. Anthony in Padua and of the original designs for the two bronze pulpits in the Basilica of San Lorenzo in Florence; (11) Donatello’s paternity of the Dudley Madonna in London (with the ideal reconstruction of the sculpture in the Del Pugliese tabernacle, painted by Fra’ Bartolomeo); and (12) the recognition to be afforded today to the role of Jenő Lányi (1902-1940) in the history of modern Donatello scholarship, with particular reference to the removal of certain works from the master’s catalogue proposed by Lányi in 1935 and 1939.

Marco Fagiani, after graduating in History of Modern Art at the University of Siena, discussed his doctoral thesis on the artistic transformations of the Abbey of Monte Oliveto Maggiore between the 16th and 17th centuries in Florence. Since June 2022, he has been a research fellow at the University of Florence, working on a project aimed at cataloguing the photographic material belonging to Pèleo Bacci (1869-1950), an important scholar and historical Soprintendente of Pisa and Siena.

marcofagiani91@gmail.com

News from Pèleo Bacci’s photo library: a lost Crucifix in “hardened stucco” for the Basilica dell’Osservanza in Siena

Among the photographic material collected by Pèleo Bacci (1869-1950) during his decades-long activity as a scholar and Soprintendente, now kept in the Biblioteca Comunale degli Intronati in Siena, there are also some pictures of a Crucifix «in stucco indurito», which was destroyed during the heavy bombardment that hit the Siena’s Basilica dell’Osservanza in January 1944. The previously unknown photographic campaign has thus allowed the recovery of a work which has so far remained on the margins of studies partly because of its unfortunate conservation vicissitudes, highlighting its very close tangents with a group of terracottas produced in the workshop of the Sienese sculptor Lorenzo di Mariano, known as il Marrina. Its realization was most likely promoted by Galgano Francesconi’s wealthy widow, Lucrezia Vieri, who, in a will dated 25 September 1508, bequeathed 100 florins to the convent for the creation of a monumental sculptural group, with «uno crucifixo magno de tera cotta aut de ligno» at its centre.

Augusto Russo obtained his PhD from the University of Naples Federico II (2017) and was awarded a scholarship at the Fondazione 1563 per l’Arte e la Cultura della Compagnia di San Paolo in Turin (2018). His research interests focus on painting and sculpture in Italy during the Baroque Age, with a particular attention to the Neapolitan context. He has published several essays, for example, on the painters Giacomo Del Po, Francesco Solimena and Francesco De Mura, and about the Cappella del Tesoro di San Gennaro and Neapolitan funerary portraiture between the 17th and 18th centuries. He contributed to the catalogue of the works in the collection of the Pio Monte della Misericordia (2020). He is currently a researcher in History of Modern Art in the Department of Humanistic Studies at the University of Naples Federico II.

augusto.russo@unina.it

A series of drawings for the stucco reliefs in the atrium of the Palazzo Sansevero in Naples: some reflections and questions

The essay deals with the cycle of stucco reliefs in the atrium of Palazzo Sansevero, in the historic centre of Naples. The reliefs, depicting Bacchanalian scenes with putti and small satyrs, were commissioned by the famous Raimondo di Sangro, Prince of Sansevero, probably shortly after 1760, when his palace was refurbished and embellished. The main contribution of the research consists of presenting a group of five small drawings from the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, which, although not easy to attribute, are here for the first time related to the reliefs, of which they could be preparatory studies. This insight has offered an opportunity for a re-examination of the stuccoes, which have traditionally been attributed to Giuseppe Sanmartino, and whose execution, according to some documents, has been credited to the stucco artist Gerardo Solifrano. However, there is also the hypothesis that the designer may have been Francesco Celebrano, an assiduous collaborator of Raimondo. Celebrano was also responsible for the frescoes in an apartment inside the same palace, with a cycle of the Four Seasons, also populated by putti and small satyrs.

Alessandro Oldani was registrar and Assistant Conservator for the Galleria d’Arte Moderna di Milano from 2011 to 2020. During this period, he focused his research on the museum’s historical building and its collections, publishing La villa Belgiojoso-Bonaparte. Una residenza neoclassica tra Ancien Regime e età napoleonica (2013, with Giovanna D’Amia) and Galleria d’Arte Moderna, Milano. Le collezioni (2017, with Paola Zatti). He also published essays and short contributions in exhibition catalogues about 19th and 20th century sculptors (Adolfo Wildt, Medardo Rosso) and painters (Angelo Morbelli). From 2020 he is Curator at Ufficio Arte negli spazi pubblici, Comune di Milano, and his research field is currently focused on contemporary sculpture and public art: he curated public art interventions by artists Flavio Favelli and Franco Mazzucchelli and published an essay on a contemporary sculpture exhibition (Aptico, 1976. Una mostra per la scultura) on issue n. 3 of «Studi di Scultura».

alessandro.oldani@comune.milano.it

Una scultura nella strada, 1970-1972. An experiment in urban art in Milan

This contribution reconsiders a public art exhibition that has been rather neglected by scholars. Between 1970 and 1972, works by nine Italian and international sculptors were exhibited in a little square in Milan’s city centre. The initiative was curated by sculptor Arnaldo Pomodoro and writer Francesco Leonetti, as part of the activities of the magazine «Che fare», a platform for the dissemination of avant-garde art and political theory, linked to the nonparliamentary left-wing movement. The focus of this essay is the detailed reconstruction of this groundbreaking exhibition, completely self-financed and distinguished by a precise curatorial line. This case study is also contextualized in the historical developments in public art and in the relationships between art and politics in the early 1970s. The essay makes use of a large number of documents, many of which have never been published, and of images by important photographers, so restoring to us the memory of works that in some cases had been lost.

Paolo Parmiggiani, an art historian specialising in the Italian Renaissance, obtained his PhD from the University of Naples Federico II. Currently, he is a research fellow at the Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa. He has published articles and essays on sculptors and architects of the fifteenth century, particularly in the Florentine and Tuscan context (such as Antonio and Bernardo Rossellino, Giovanni di Bertino, Desiderio da Settignano, Antonio del Pollaiolo, Andrea del Verrocchio, Francesco and Andrea Ferrucci, Giuliano da Sangallo, Benedetto da Maiano, Francesco di Giorgio). Furthermore, he has participated in research projects, exhibitions, seminars, and international conferences.

paoloparmiggiani@gmail.com

Clarence Kennedy between photography and research: the main portal of Santa Maria Novella and the sculptors of Settignano

Clarence Kennedy’s position in developingart historical studies is well known.Over the past 20th years, his work as a scholar-photographer has been the subject of significant contributions, highlighting his innovative role. His photographs continue to be a fundamental research tool, and his historiographical work stands out for its precise method of investigation and analytical accuracy. Among the most prominent artists studied by Kennedy are some fifteenth-century sculptors from Settignano, such as Desiderio da Settignano and Antonio Rossellino, as well as other related or close personalities. The aim of this essay is to explore Clarence Kennedy’s method, looking at both his work as a photographer and an art historian through the case study of the leading portal of the Basilica of Santa Maria Novella in Florence, attributed by sources to Giovanni di Bertino from Settignano.

Clara Gelao was born in Bari in 1952 and studied at the Universities of Bari and Naples. She has worked at the Pinacoteca «Corrado Giaquinto» of Bari since 1978, first as a scholarship holder in Museology, then as an art history inspector, and lastly as director from 1991 until September 2018, overseeing the growth and development of the Pinacoteca.

She was a member of the Executive Committee of the National Association of Museums in Local and Institutional Authorities for many years. During her long career as a researcher, she has focused mainly on art history of southern Italy from the 15th to the 19th centuries. She has also contributed to numerous catalogues on contemporary photography.

gelaoclara@gmail.com

Mimmo Jodice and Antonio Canova. Chronicle of an encounter

The research presented is dedicated to the “virtual” relationship that Mimmo Jodice, one of the most famous contemporary Italian photographers, established starting in 1990 with Antonio Canova (1757-1822), offering a personal, intense interpretation of a large group of the artist’s sculptures. The essay retraces the main phases of Canova’s controversial critical career, on which contradictory and ambiguous opinions have been expressed.

In the second half of the 20th century, there was a growing appreciation of the artist thanks above all to the impulse given by Giulio Carlo Argan, who invited Jodice to photograph his works. The results of this operation, which lasted two years, are the clearest example of how decisive the contribution of photography can be to understanding Canova’s sculpture. Mimmo Jodice’s images, published only in 2013, are never documentary; they do not represent reality as it is, but rather his vision of the world, in which imagination, dream and creation come into play.

Alberto Pirro (Naples, 1990) is a Ph. D. candidate in Historical, Archaeological and Historical-Artistic Sciences (XXXVII cycle) at the Università di Napoli Federico II. Supervised by Professors Isabella Valente and Claudio Pizzorusso, he is currently working on the monumental production of Carlo Marochetti (1805-1867), a sculptor active in the courts of the Kingdom of Sardinia, France, and the United Kingdom. He graduated from the Università di Roma Tre (2017) and the Università di Torino (2020). Furthermore, he also studied in France, attending the École Nationale des Chartes and doing an internship at the Département des Sculptures of the Musée du Louvre (2018-2019). Following a year of study as résident chercheur at the Bibliothèque et Villa Marmottan (Paris, 2022-2023) and a month as a research fellow at the Henry Moore Institute (Leeds, 2024), he is now continuing his research on early 19th-century sculpture and, in particular, on those artists travelling and working between Italy, France and England.

pirro.alberto@gmail.com

Photographing monuments. The monumental sculpture of Turin through Mario Gabinio’s gaze (1871-1938)

Mario Gabinio (1871-1938), an Italian amateur photographer considered of European importance, was mainly active in Turin and produced numerous images throughout his life. A keen observer of his time, he carefully documented the city’s changes. In the extensive collection preserved in the Fondo Gabinio of the Galleria Civica d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea in Turin, many are prints and negatives dedicated to the public sculpture monuments erected in the Piedmontese capital between the 19th and 20th centuries. Once the capital of the Kingdom of Italy was transferred to Florence in 1865, the statues celebrating the Savoy capital began to change their political significance. Gabinio, with his lens, captured the essence of these works of art, transforming them into popular and shared imagery. The essay analyses the ways Gabinio portrayed these monuments and made them iconic. Furthermore, it examines how his photographs contributed to the reinterpretation of these public sculptures, actively (re)elaborating stories, memories, and meanings of a past that can adapt to the present.

Davide Colombo is Associate Professor of Contemporary Art History at the University of Milan, where he teaches History of Photography and Photography and New Media for Contemporary Art.

His studies have focused on the 20th century, with a particular interest in the relations between art, militant criticism and literature, and between art, science and technology, in verbovisual research, in sculpture, and in photography. Specific attention is paid to the study of international relations, especially between Italy and the United States, for which he obtained a fellowship from the Terra Foundation for American Art (2014). On the relationship between photography and sculpture, he recently published Bruno Stefani: fotografia e scultura. Alcune copertine della rivista “L’Illustrazione del Medico” in “L’uomo nero” (2021), Prospezioni sullo Studio Santandrea attorno al 1969 attraverso gli archivi dei fotografi Enrico Cattaneo e Johnny Ricci in “Studi di Memofonte” (2022), La documentazione dell’arte nella visione “collettiva” al tempo di internet e dei social media. Qualche considerazione, in Seen / Unseen, a c. di artQ13, Britta Lenk (Dortmund 2023).

davide.colombo1@unimi.it

Enrico Cattaneo’s photographs from the exhibition Sculture contemporanee nello spazio urbano (Parma, 1973)

In the summer of 1973, Parma hosted the exhibition Sculture contemporanee nello spazio urbano (Azuma, Balderi, Benevelli, Pardi, G. Pomodoro, Ramous, Staccioli). Partly in continuity with the seminal exhibition Sculture nella città held in Spoleto in 1962, but also in line with the spirit of the times, in the Parma event sculpture becomes the key to interpreting the urban pattern and the space inhabited by local citizens. To Sculture contemporanee nello spazio urbano Enrico Cattaneo has dedicated an extensive reportage of 17 rolls of 35 mm film – kept in the Archivio Enrico Cattaneo -, with which he documented the exhibition (by day and by night) and the moments of the inauguration. Through the identification of recurring visual structures, this contribution aims to show how Cattaneo’s photography played a critical and interpretative role in the reading of the sculptures and their relations with the urban and architectural space.

Fabio Speranza is an art historian at the Certosa e Museo di San Martino, coordinator of the Fototeca e Laboratorio fotografico of the Direzione regionale musei Campania and his studies in the History of photography focus mainly on nineteenth-century Neapolitan photographic production. His recent publications include: La trasformazione tardo-ottocentesca della piazza del Municipio di Napoli nelle fotografie di Giacomo Arena («Napoli Nobilissima», II/3, 2016), Alphonse Bernoud pioniere della fotografia (Arte’m 2018), Francesco Gibertini e gli albori della fotografia a Napoli. Dal teatro di figura ai ritratti al dagherrotipo («Rivista di Studi di Fotografia», 12, 2021), Napoli ‘fin de siècle’. Fotografia Artistica Pasquale e Achille Esposito (Mauro Pagliai 2022).

fa.speranza@libero.it

«The Art of making sculpture works using photography». François Willème, Giacomo Luzzati and sculpture-photography in Naples in the second half of the 19th century

For the first time, the article proposes a reconstruction of the production of the Fotografia Pompejana, a photographic establishment, directed by Giacomo Luzzati from Rovigo, who worked in Naples from 1862 to 1874. Known above all for his activity as a portraitist, which he combined with the lesser-known production of views and art monuments, Luzzati also proved to be a careful experimenter with innovative techniques with the sculto-fotografia, which, simplifying a process patented in France by François Willème in 1860, made it possible to obtain plastic subjects through a series of photographic shots taken at regular intervals from different angles, a forerunner of modern 3D printing. Sculto-fotografia was used extensively by Luzzati in the Pompeiorama, which proposed a “virtual” reconstruction of the ruins of ancient Pompeii, following the tradition inaugurated by the diorama.

Irene Caravita is Research Fellow at the Sapienza University of Roma, joining the project WOW – WOmen Writing around the camera – PRIN 2022. She discussed her PhD at Sapienza in 2020, and later won the Bando-Premio Tesi 2021 to publish La fotografia nelle gallerie private di Milano, 1967-1975 (De Luca, Roma, 2022). She had already won the Avvio alla ricerca 2019, funds that supported the study of the pictorial production by Mario Giacomelli, a project concluded by the publication Mario Giacomelli painter (Campisano, Rome, 2022) and by the exhibition Mario Giacomelli between painting and photography (MLAC, Rome, 2022). Her essays had been published on «L’Uomo Nero» (2019), «Piano B» (2023) and «Dune» (2022), she has compiled the Diagramma entry for the Bloomsbury Art Market, and she is included in the edited volumes Paradigmi del fotografico (Bologna, 2022) and Astratte (Milano, 2023).

caravita.irene@gmail.com

Sculptors show photographs, photographers show objects. A review of exhibitions in Milan in the early 1970s

The essay brings up a carousel of heterogeneous exhibitions in which sculpture and photography had been shown together. The opportunity to rethink them all together allows for a discussion that leads them to clarify each other, suggests at a trend and induces us to shed light on the process that led artists to move with ease from one medium to another and, at the same time, saw photographers to attribute a new value to the materiality of their images. In the early 1970s, several artists in Milan context exhibited sculptures alongside photographic or audiovisual material or, on the other side, photographic objects were presented with three-dimensional physical shapes. Examples include the slides projected by Thea Vallé to accompany her abstract forms, or the giant soft photographs created by Balthasar Burkhard and Markus Raetz, as well as the practices of Adriano Altamira, Mario Cresci, Ugo Locatelli, Franco Mazzucchelli and Michele Zaza.

Silvia Maria Sara Cammarata, PhD, is a research fellow at the Department of Historical Studies at the University of Turin, where she studies the intersection between exhibitions, museum displays, and contemporary art production in the context of postmodern criticism. Following an internship at the Centre Pompidou on the project “Histoire des expositions au XXème siècle”, she delved into the history of exhibitions, focusing on a corpus of exhibitions from 1981 to 1994 that influenced the relationship between Arte povera and Italian cultural identity. She has been a member of national and international research groups, participated in conferences and published her research in several scientific journals.

She recently collaborated on the exhibition catalog Arte Povera for La Bourse de Commerce – Pinault Collection in Paris.

silviamariasara.cammarata@unito.it

Tearing a photograph. The Caryatids by Giulio Paolini

In 1979 Giulio Paolini created a work called Caryatid, which was followed by two others with the same title, in 1980 and 1984. This cycle is essentially held together by photography and made with the use of plaster casts. For this reason, it is suitable for an in-depth study of the relationship between sculpture and photography, considering Paolini’s artistic development and coeval debates. Indeed, the article seeks to read these works in relation to the debate on the nature and characteristics of photography that developed between the 1970s and 1980s and that highlighted, among other things, how it undermined the unity of space and time. In particular, an attempt is made to probe a common characteristic of casts and photographs: both are so-called exact reproduction techniques that nevertheless generate simulacra and imprints.

Manuela D’Agostino, a trained historian, has perfected her studies by specialising in the methods for processing archival, bibliographic, oral, audiovisual, graphic, cartographic and photographic sources from preservation to digital. She conducts training courses for librarian staff and approaches to research methodologies. She is an official at the Academy of Fine Arts in Naples. She has published, among other works, Le cenerentole dell’arte (Arte’m, 2017); L’esperienza universale di St. Louis (Carocci, 2018); Storia e analisi iconografica della rivista «Le Théatre» in «Nuova informazione bibliografica» 1/2020, pp. 137-146; Il potere delle immagini e l’Esposizione Universale di St. Louis del 1904 in La città globale (AISU 2020); La Biblioteca dell’Accademia di Belle Arti al servizio della formazione artistica (e non solo) in «Archivio Storico delle Province Napoletane», n. 139 (2021); Non refert quam multos libros libros habeas, sed quam bonos in «Archivio Storico delle Province Napoletane», n. 141 (2023); Modelli iconografici dell’Ottocento in materia d’Antico nel patrimonio della Biblioteca dell’Accademia di Belle Arti di Napoli in La cultura dell’Antico nelle arti figurative dalla Restaurazione alla Grande Guerra (Naus, 2023).

eladagostino@gmail.com

Objective focused on the photographic fund at the Academy of Fine Arts in Naples. First investigations on the School of Sculpture

What is the role of photography in the process of historical reconstruction of the School of Sculpture at the Royal Institute (Academy) of Fine Arts in Naples? Photography has been used to record the vast production of masters and students. The history of the ancient Bourbon institution has consistently recorded the vast production of masters and students through photography, driven by the firm belief that, as Gianni Pisani wrote a few years ago, «the artist, more than anyone else, cannot accept that his work, the very reason for his life, remains buried in a warehouse». The essay aims to enhance the collection of albumen prints, the oldest part of the photographic fund of the Anna Caputi Library at the Academy, to reconstruct the School of Sculpture activity and to deepen the network of interests and relationships that developed in the Neapolitan context.

Greta Plaitano holds a PhD in Art History, Cinema and Audiovisual Media from the University of Udine, in co-tutorship with the Université Sorbonne Nouvelle Paris 3. Her work focuses on the history of photography and photographic archives, the history of the body, and artistic pedagogy – topics to which she has dedicated essays published in academic books and articles in such as («Fata Morgana», «La valle dell’Eden», «Cinéma&Cie», «Rivista di Studi di Fotografia RSF», etc. Since 2020, she has been collaborating with the historical heritage of the Academy of Brera on a series of projects that aim at cataloguing and enhancing the Institute’s Photographic Library. Plaitano is also a lecturer at the Albertina Academy of Fine Arts in Turin, where she teaches Cataloguing and Management of Archives and Cultural and Environmental Heritage. She is the recipient of a research grant from the IMT Alti Studi Lucca School and the Academy of Brera for the project Prin “Fotografiste”: Women in Photography from Italian Archives, 1839-1939.

gretaplaitano@fadbrera.edu.it

Enrico Butti and the School of Sculpture at the Brera Academy of Fine Arts. An overview of the materials in the Photographic Library and the Historical Archives

The present paper aims to study the development of the sculpture course at the Brera Academy of Fine Arts, taught by the artist and professor Enrico Butti between 1893 and 1914. The purpose of this work is to depict Butti’s pedagogical practice and, at the same time, to retrace some of the relationships he had with his most talented pupils. The study is based on various documentary sources. On the one hand, through a series of documents found in the Historical Archives of the Academy of Brera – Professor Butti’s file and the one dedicated to his teaching of sculpture, together with other data such as topographical lists and protocol registers, which had not been properly investigated so far. On the other hand, through the autoptic examination and the material characteristics of a partly unpublished core of photographs, which are the focus of a recent restoration project, promoted by the Historical Photografic Library.

Agnese Sferrazza born in Rome, graduated in Literature-History of Modern Art and in History and Conservation of Artistic Heritage at the Roma Tre University, she carried out research activities for several years, taking part in projects in collaboration with the Accademia di San Luca, Municipal Gallery of Modern Art of Rome, Roma Tre University, French Academy-Villa Medici, Center for Studies on Culture and Image of Rome. She deals with the History of Modern Art with particular attention to Italian and European art between the 19th and 20th centuries, up to 1950, ranging from the major arts to the minor arts and with special focus on drawing and graphic arts. Since 2022 he has taught History of Modern and Art and History of Contemporary Art at the Academy of Fine Arts of Macerata and at the Academy of Fine Arts of Frosinone; he also teaches History of Drawing and Printmaking at the Academy of Fine Arts in Perugia. Since February 2024 she has been the director of the Civic Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art of Anticoli Corrado (Rome).

agnesesferrazza@gmail.com

From the collection of Diego Pettinelli: plates and photographs from the ateliers of Adolfo De Carolis, Angelo Zanelli, Pietro Canonica and Michele La Spina

The emergence of a collection made up of negative glass plates and prints on the antiques market brings some insight into the activity of some sculptors in the first half of the 20th century. The collection comes from the studio of Adolfo de Carolis and, through inheritance, from that of his pupil and son-in-law, Diego Pettinelli, who enriched it with further photographs. The first nucleus includes some photographs from De Carolis’s collaboration with Pio Cellini. Moreover Pettinelli’s additions include images of sculptural works carried out in the first thirty years of the 20th century, including shots from the studios of Angelo Zanelli, Pietro Canonica and Michele La Spina.

The analysis of the collection, albeit limited to archival material, makes it possible to trace some of the trajectories of the Roman sculptural scene of the first half of the 20th century, relating to the personal relationships between artists, thanks to the widespread practice of the mutual exchange of photographs glued onto supports.

Isabella Valente is professor of Contemporary Art History at the University of Naples Federico II. She is a member of the Department of Humanistic Studies (DSU) and teaches History of Contemporary Art and History and History of Photography. Her area of research is the figurative arts of the 19th and 20th centuries: on the subject he has organized several national and international conferences, and numerous exhibitions. In particular, her studies on sculpture flowed into the major exhibition Il Bello o il Vero. La scultura napoletana del secondo Ottocento e del primo Novecento (2014-2015). She is a member of several scientific committees of Italian museums, including the Museo e Real Bosco di Capodimonte. She has always been involved in the protection and conservation, organization and enhancement of cultural heritage. She promoted and curated the donation of artworks by Francesco Jerace (1853-1937), placed in the Carlo V Hall of the Castel Nuovo in Naples.

isabella.valente@unina.it

Giuseppe Pirozzi. The sculptor’s atelier

On 16 September 2024 at the Cellaio, a highly evocative location in the Real Bosco di Capodimonte in Naples, an exhibition of 108 works, including sculptures, drawings and graphics, by Giuseppe Pirozzi was inaugurated: Giuseppe Pirozzi. The sculptor’s atelier. Born in 1934, Pirozzi was one of the major protagonists of 20th-century Neapolitan sculpture. His research, which began around figuration at the beginning of the 1950s, although traversing different artistic orientations, always lies between two poles: figure and matter. It is often the material that leads the game, a game of intertwining life, history, memory and dreams. The curators of the exhibition, Maria Tamajo Contarini and Luciana Berti, have skilfully chosen the works, placing them in close dialogue with each other in relation to the exhibition space of the Cellaio, establishing an anthological and chronological itinerary of great fascination and extreme beauty.