A common thread connects Italy to South Africa on the occasion of the centenary of the birth of one of the symbols of the southern hemisphere, Nelson Mandela born in 1918.
Sixty works, including oils, watercolors and graphics, until 3 March 2019 retrace over a century of international art, through some of the major artists in the world from Claude Monet to Edgar Degas, from Dante Gabriel Rossetti to John Everet Millais, from Pablo Picasso to Francis Bacon, from Roy Lichtenstein to Andy Warhol and many more.
From 17 November 2018 to 3 March 2019, the Palazzo Ducale in Genoa hosts the exhibition presenting the masterpieces of the Johannesburg Art Gallery, opened to the public in 1910, and which boasts a heritage of great artistic value.
The exhibition is produced and organized by ViDi, in collaboration with Common di GenoVa e Palazzo Ducal Foundation for Culture, edited by Simona Bartolena, offers works from the prestigious South African art gallery and which represent the mixture of styles and artistic currents that marked the twentieth century.
The expository narrative begins from the nineteenth century English and from two works by William Turner and continues with the painting of Alma-Tadema, The Death of the Firstborn, a refined and melancholy scene set in a dark and imaginative Egypt, and with a series of works signed by the leading exponents of the Pre-Raphaelites, such as John Everett Millais and Dante Gabriel Rossetti of which a masterpiece is exhibited, Regina cordium, the queen of hearts, or Elizabeth Siddal, with whom the painter lived an intense and at the same time unfortunate love story, which ended with the probable suicide of the woman.
The exhibition continues with a large section dedicated to the results of late nineteenth-century painting and opens with those painters who chose a new approach to life in painting, such as Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot, who are present in the exhibition with a small Landscape, Gustave Courbet with a glimpse of the Norman cliff of Étretat and Jean-François Millet. There is no shortage of the Impressionist generation, introduced by authors such as Eugéne Boudin and Johan Barthold Jongkind, which is represented by Edgar Degas (Two Ballerinas), Claude Monet (Spring) and again Alfred Sisley.
The itinerary continues with some protagonists of the post-impressionist scene: Paul Cezanne (The Bathers), Vincent FROM Gogh (Portrait of an old man), Pierre Bonnard, Edward Vuillard.
Crossing the threshold of that twentieth century which would have been defined as the short century by the British historian and writer Eric Hobsbawm, one encounters the works of two of the most celebrated masters of the century: Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso who open up to new instances of contemporary art, with Ossip Zadkine and others. Still, we fly across the Channel with the works of the British Francis Bacon e Henry Moore, and overseas with the works of American Pop Art by Robert Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol, whose triptych dedicated to Joseph beuys.
The review closes with a particular eye on Africa: you can admire the works of Maggie Laubser, one of the exponents of South African expressionism and the works of Maude Sumner, Selby Mvusi and George Pemba, painters with strong interests in the social traditions of the country, but also urban life and the reality of Apartheid.
The exhibition, as well as presenting an excellent selection of works by great masters, allows you to discover the fascinating history of the Johannesburg Art Gallery.
The main protagonist of the birth and formation of the museum collection was Lady Florence Phillips, wife of the mining magnate Sir Lionel Phillips. A woman of great charm, herself a collector, convinced that her city should have an art museum, she persuaded her husband and some industry magnates to invest in the project. Already at its opening, the museum presents a selection of works of extraordinary quality and modernity, a nucleus that has been enriched over the years, thanks to new acquisitions and donations.
