Estorick Collection

EXHIBITION

15 May 2024 - 8 September 2024

Sergio Strizzi (1931–2004) is considered one of cinematic still photography’s greatest talents. He worked with Italy’s top film directors, including Antonioni and De Sica, as well as internationally-renowned figures such as John Huston and Peter Greenaway, and worked as a photographer on the sets of several James Bond films.

Pasquarosa: From Muse to Painter

EXHIBITION

12 January 2024 - 28 April 2024

Pasquarosa Marcelli (1896 - 1973), known simply as 'Pasquarosa', was one of the first Italian artists to have a solo exhibition in London, during the 1920s. A century later, her work returns to the capital in a new show featuring some 50 paintings and drawings on loan from Rome’s Archivio Nino e Pasquarosa Bertoletti and other private collections.

Lisetta Carmi: Identities

EXHIBITION

20 September 2023 - 17 December 2023

The first museum show in the UK of ground-breaking photographer Lisetta Carmi (1924 – 2022), whose imagery is currently receiving renewed attention.

Osvaldo Licini: Rebellious Angel

EXHIBITION

14 June 2023 - 10 September 2023

The first exhibition dedicated to the work of Osvaldo Licini (1894-1958) in the UK. A key figure of 20th-century Italian art, Licini participated in the Futurist movement before establishing himself as a figurative painter of portraits, landscapes and still lifes.

Giorgio Morandi: Masterpieces from the Magnani-Rocca Foundation

EXHIBITION

6 January 2023 - 28 May 2023

In January 2023, to coincide with the 25th anniversary of the Estorick Collection opening to the public in 1998, we will present an exhibition of works by one of the most popular artists in our permanent collection, Giorgio Morandi.

Luigi Pericle: A Rediscovery

EXHIBITION

14 September 2022 - 18 December 2022

Luigi Pericle (1916-2001), was a fascinating and singular artist whose work was greatly admired by Herbert Read and Ben Nicholson.

Alexander Archipenko, Figure, 1917-1921/1950s. Courtesy of The Archipenko Foundation © Estate of Alexander Archipenko - ARS, NY and DACS, London 2022

Archipenko and the Italian Avant Garde

EXHIBITION

4 May 2022 - 4 September 2022

An exploration of the relationship between Ukrainian-born American artist Alexander Archipenko (1887-1964) and the masters of Italian modern art.

Bice Lazzari: Modernist Pioneer

EXHIBITION

14 January 2022 - 24 April 2022

Exploring the aesthetics of Art Informel, minimalism and hard-edged abstraction, Bice Lazzari's paintings made a significant contribution to twentieth-century Italian art, yet have remained largely unknown outside her native country.

Estorick Collection Uncut

EXHIBITION

6 October 2021 - 19 December 2021

In autumn 2021, the Estorick’s entire collection of modern Italian art was on show throughout the museum’s six galleries in a new exhibition, Estorick Collection Uncut.

Olivier Debré: Fervent Abstraction

EXHIBITION

30 June 2021 - 26 September 2021

In the summer of 2021, the Estorick Collection presented an exhibition by French post-war painter Olivier Debré (1920-1999). The show was selected by Michael Estorick, Chair of the Estorick Trustees, and son of Eric and Salome Estorick, whose renowned collection of Modern Italian Art is housed in the museum. This was the first major show of the artist's work in the UK in 44 years, and brought together some 30 oils and works on paper, including 16 of Debré’s large-scale paintings.

Italian Threads: MITA Textile Design 1926-1976

EXHIBITION

30 September 2020 - 20 June 2021

Founded in Genoa in 1926, MITA was an Italian firm that specialized in rugs, tapestries and other textiles, and earned its reputation by collaborating with some of Italy's most talented artists. This exhibition revealed the company's characteristically Italian approach to design.

Tullio Crali: A Futurist Life

EXHIBITION

15 January 2020 - 13 September 2020

For Tullio Crali (1910-2000) Futurism was not simply a style of painting, but an attitude to life itself. This exhilarating exhibition explored every phase of Crali’s remarkably coherent career, featuring a large number of rarely seen works from the 1920s to the 1980s.

Umberto Boccioni: Recreating the Lost Sculptures

EXHIBITION

25 September 2019 - 22 December 2019

The destruction, in 1927, of a number of plaster sculptures by Futurist artist Umberto Boccioni represented a great loss for avant-garde art. Now, using a wealth of photographic source material and ground-breaking 3D printing techniques, artists Matt Smith and Anders Råden recreated three of the artist’s iconic striding figures. This exciting and innovative display enabled visitors to ‘see’ these lost masterpieces for the first time.

Paolo Scheggi: In Depth

EXHIBITION

3 July 2019 - 15 September 2019

Paolo Scheggi (1940-1971) belonged to the neo-avant-garde of the 1960s and was one of the protagonists of Spatialism. This exhibition spanned the artist’s entire career, including his most famous works formed of overlapping layers of canvas pierced by biomorphic or geometric openings.

Who’s Afraid of Drawing? Works on Paper from the Ramo Collection

EXHIBITION

17 April 2019 - 23 June 2019

Milan’s Ramo Collection comprises nearly 600 works on paper by artists belonging to some of the most important movements and tendencies in twentieth-century Italian art. This exhibition – the first to present a selection of drawings from the Collection outside Italy – explored the discipline as more than just a ‘preparatory’ activity, considering it as an art form in its own right.

Fausto Melotti: Counterpoint

EXHIBITION

16 January 2019 - 7 April 2019

Informed by the languages of music and mathematics, Melotti’s harmonious and delicately-poised work is revered in Italy, yet surprisingly little-known in the UK.

A New Figurative Art 1920-1945: Works from the Giuseppe Iannaccone Collection

EXHIBITION

26 September 2018 - 23 December 2018

Since the early 1990s, Giuseppe Iannaccone has been amassing one of the most outstanding private collections of Italian art of the inter-war years. Presenting a large number of iconic works, this exhibition explored a crucial phase of Italian art history little-known outside its native country.

The Art of Campari

EXHIBITION

4 July 2018 - 16 September 2018

This exhibition celebrated Campari’s rich heritage in creativity and design, showcasing the ground-breaking advertising and packaging designs responsible for establishing and maintaining unrivalled global recognition for the brand.

Rationalism on Set: Glamour and Modernity in 1930s Italian Cinema

EXHIBITION

18 April 2018 - 24 June 2018

This exhibition explored a little known period of Italian cinematic history, highlighting the strong Modernist influence apparent in the set designs created for a number of romantic comedies during the inter-war years.

The Enchanted Room: Modern Works from the Pinacoteca di Brera

EXHIBITION

24 January 2018 - 8 April 2018

The Estorick opened its 20th anniversary year with a major exhibition of works from one of the world’s most important collections of modern Italian art, housed at Milan’s Pinacoteca di Brera.

Poor Art | Arte Povera: Italian Influences, British Responses

EXHIBITION

20 September 2017 - 17 December 2017

The term ‘Arte Povera’ was first used in September 1967 by the critic Germano Celant to describe the work of a number of artists who engaged with unconventional, and often humble, materials.

Franco Grignani: Art as Design 1950-1990

EXHIBITION

5 July 2017 - 10 September 2017

Best known for his swirling ‘Woolmark’ logo, Franco Grignani (1908-1999) was an extraordinary graphic designer and artist whose dazzling works anticipated many of the key ideas and visual characteristics of Op Art by several years.

Giacomo Balla: Designing the Future

EXHIBITION

5 April 2017 - 25 June 2017

Organised in collaboration with the Biagiotti Cigna Collection, this major exhibition presented a career-spanning retrospective of one of Italian Futurism's most important and consistently inventive artists. Encompassing his early Divisionist imagery, iconic Futurist paintings and examples of his distinctive work in the sphere of the applied arts, it offered a comprehensive survey of Balla's multifaceted activity between the years 1895 and 1958, including many works rarely seen outside Italy.

War in the Sunshine: The British in Italy 1917-1918

EXHIBITION

13 January 2017 - 19 March 2017

Following an extensive refurbishment of the museum, the Estorick Collection reopened with a major exhibition of rarely seen works documenting the role of British forces in Italy during the First World War. Comprising the imagery of official war artists and photographers, it highlighted a forgotten aspect of Britain’s involvement in the conflict.

The Experience of Colour: Astrazione Oggettiva

EXHIBITION

13 April 2016 - 31 July 2016

In the autumn of 1976, a group of painters from Italy’s northern Trentino region published their ‘Manifesto of Objective Abstraction’. Reacting against what they considered to be the superficiality of contemporary culture, Mauro Cappelletti, Diego Mazzonelli, Gianni Pellegrini, Aldo Schmid, Luigi Senesi and Giuseppe Wenter Marini called for a renewed attention to the painterly process and its fundamentally abstract concerns.

Giacomo Manzù: Sculptor and Draughtsman

EXHIBITION

15 January 2016 - 3 April 2016

A giant of twentieth-century sculpture, Giacomo Manzù (1908-1991) is best known for delicate and moving work focusing predominantly on portraiture and religious imagery. As sensitive to line as to form, his drawings exhibit the same restrained power and sinuous qualities familiar from his more celebrated bas-reliefs and three-dimensional work.

More than Meets the Eye: New Research on the Estorick Collection

EXHIBITION

23 September 2015 - 20 December 2015

This fascinating exhibition presented the findings of a group of specialist art historians, restorers and scientists who examined key works from the Estorick’s permanent collection. Using the most up-to-date methods employed in the analysis of artworks, they shed new light on the different techniques used by a number of painters, and in some cases even revealed the presence of previously unknown images beneath, or on the back of, the Collection’s masterpieces.

Fausto Pirandello: 1899-1975

EXHIBITION

8 July 2015 - 6 September 2015

Fausto Pirandello was one of the most important and influential painters working in Italy between the 1930s and the 1950s. The son of dramatist Luigi Pirandello, his work expressed a vision of reality that was raw, carnal and unflinchingly objective.

Modigliani: A Unique Artistic Voice

EXHIBITION

15 April 2015 - 28 June 2015

One of the acknowledged superstars of twentieth-century art, Amedeo Modigliani (1884-1920) is also the best known and most loved of all modern Italian painters. Working at the epicentre of avant-garde experimentation in Paris between 1906 and 1920, he developed an artistic vision that was entirely his own. This exhibition was the first to be devoted to the artist at the Estorick Collection, and focused on his works on paper, showing the spiritual and stylistic development of his portrayal of the human face and form.

Renato Guttuso: Painter of Modern Life

EXHIBITION

14 January 2015 - 4 April 2015

Renato Guttuso (1911-1987) is one of Italy’s most widely respected modern painters. Towards the end of the 1930s his powerful brand of expressionist realism vividly conveyed the angst of a generation which wanted its art to reflect and engage with the urgency of contemporary life. Rejecting both the formalism of abstract painting and the naturalism advocated by those on the far right of Fascism’s cultural establishment, Guttuso played a key role in forging a style that would go on to dominate Italian art during the immediate post-war years.

Peter de Francia and Renato Guttuso: A Friendship Across Europe

EXHIBITION

14 January 2015 - 4 April 2015

A selection of drawings by the British artist Peter de Francia made in Italy in the years 1947 to 1953. It is dedicated to the friendship between the two artists who met in post-war Italy.

Roman Ostia: Ancient Ruins, Modern Art

EXHIBITION

24 September 2014 - 20 December 2014

This stimulating exhibition, spanning two millennia, juxtaposed antiquities from the important archaeological site of Ostia Antica, near Rome, with the work of two modern Italian artists: Umberto Mastroianni (1910-1998) and Ettore de Conciliis (b. 1941).

Gerardo Dottori: The Futurist View

EXHIBITION

9 July 2014 - 7 September 2014

Gerardo Dottori (1884-1977) was one of the pivotal figures of Italian Futurism during the inter-war years. His expansive and intensely poetic visions of the Umbrian landscape, viewed from above, were among the earliest and most striking examples of ‘aeropainting’ – the dominant trend within Futurist art throughout the 1930s, exploring the dynamic perspectives offered by flight.

Marcello Geppetti: The Years of La Dolce Vita

EXHIBITION

30 April 2014 - 29 June 2014

The 1950s and ’60s represent a golden era in Italian film, when directors Michelangelo Antonioni, Pier Paolo Pasolini and Federico Fellini produced some of their most famous movies. John Wayne, Charlton Heston, Lauren Bacall and Liz Taylor, among other Hollywood stars, also frequented the capital as American filmmakers were lured to Rome by the comparative low cost of its Cinecittà studios, where such epic productions as Ben-Hur (1959) and Cleopatra (1963) were shot. In the evenings the focus of Rome’s movie culture – as well as the lenses of its paparazzi – shifted to the bars and restaurants lining the city’s exclusive Via Veneto, the presence of celebrities like Alain Delon, Kirk Douglas and Audrey Hepburn transforming Rome’s streets into ‘an open-air film set’.

Giorgio de Chirico: Myth and Mystery

EXHIBITION

15 January 2014 - 19 April 2014

The visionary work of Giorgio de Chirico (1888-1978) had an enormous impact on the course of twentieth-century art. His unsettling ‘Metaphysical’ imagery – with its illogical perspectives, looming mannequins and bizarre juxtapositions of objects – anticipated Surrealism’s fascination with the irrational and the workings of the subconscious by many years. Even before the First World War, de Chirico had declared: ‘To be really immortal a work of art must go beyond the limits of the human: good sense and logic will be missing from it. In this way it will come close to the dream state, and also to the mentality of children.’

Emilio Greco: Sacred and Profane

EXHIBITION

25 September 2013 - 22 December 2013

Organised to mark the centenary of Emilio Greco’s birth, this exhibition was the first show at the Estorick Collection to be devoted to sculpture.

Giorgio Casali Photographer: Domus 1951-1983 Architecture, Design and Art in Italy

EXHIBITION

22 May 2013 - 8 September 2013

For over thirty years, Giorgio Casali (1913-1995) photographed the work of the greatest post-war Italian architects and designers for Gio Ponti’s famous magazine, the style bible Domus.

Giorgio Morandi: Lines of Poetry

EXHIBITION

16 January 2013 - 28 April 2013

The Estorick Collection inaugurated its fifteenth-anniversary year with an exhibition of some 80 etchings and watercolours by the master of poetic understatement, Giorgio Morandi.

Bruno Munari: My Futurist Past

EXHIBITION

19 September 2012 - 23 December 2012

Bruno Munari was one of the most complex, creative and multi-faceted figures of twentieth-century Italian art. This exhibition traced his career from its early years up to the post-war period, when he became a point of reference for a new generation of artists and designers.

In Astratto: Abstraction in Italy 1930-1980

EXHIBITION

27 June 2012 - 9 September 2012

In Astratto explored fifty years of innovation in Italian abstraction, and presented a comprehensive survey of the myriad approaches to the subject that emerged during the key period from 1930 to 1980.

Giuseppe Cavalli: Master of Light

EXHIBITION

18 April 2012 - 17 June 2012

One of the key figures of twentieth-century Italian photography, Giuseppe Cavalli (1904-1961) is surprisingly little known outside his native country. Reacting against the rhetorical and overblown imagery of the Fascist era, Cavalli’s work is imbued with the intimate poetry of daily life. Best known for his subtle studies of reclining nudes and everyday objects such as bottles, glasses and candlesticks, Cavalli in fact steadfastly subscribed to the principle that ‘the subject has no importance at all’ in the work of art – and indeed such elements were simply vehicles for his true subject: light. This exhibition of delicate and timeless images from the Prelz Oltramonti Collection spanned the artist’s brief career, which ended prematurely with his death at the age of only fifty-seven.

Alberto Burri: Form and Matter

EXHIBITION

13 January 2012 - 7 April 2012

Alberto Burri (1915-1995) revolutionised the artistic vocabulary of the post-war art world. During the 1950s his celebration of humble materials such as sacking and tar created a new aesthetic, rich in expressive power, that was later to prove decisive for artists associated with the Arte Povera movement. Despite his importance, this exhibition was the first major retrospective of the artist’s work to be held in the United Kingdom. It offered a comprehensive overview of Burri's achievement through works spanning four decades: from rare, figurative pieces of the late 1940s to the ground-breaking abstract works for which he is best known.

The Poster King: Edward McKnight Kauffer

EXHIBITION

14 September 2011 - 18 December 2011

Edward McKnight Kauffer produced some of the most iconic and influential commercial imagery of the early twentieth century. A remarkably versatile artist, his work drew inspiration from a wide variety of styles ranging from Japanese art to Fauvism, Vorticism and Constructivism, and encompassed painting, applied art, interior design and scenography. Yet it remains his celebrated posters created for clients such as London Underground and Shell during the inter-war years for which he remains most famous. Kauffer's pioneering work in the field of graphic design ranks alongside the achievements of fellow avant-garde figures such as T. S. Eliot, Ezra Pound and Wyndham Lewis, all of whom – like Kauffer – had roots in the United States yet established their careers in London.

United Artists of Italy: Photographic Portraits

EXHIBITION

22 June 2011 - 4 September 2011

United Artists of Italy showed twentieth-century Italian art in a new light, presenting the artists through the eyes of some of Italy's most celebrated photographers. The exhibition revealed a visual profile of contemporary art and artists not through their artworks but through faces, poses and expressions. Some 85 photographs were carefully selected from a collection of 250 portraits put together over a period of many years by Brescia-based contemporary art dealer Massimo Minini.

Double Portrait: Ida Barbarigo and Zoran Music

EXHIBITION

13 April 2011 - 12 June 2011

Double Portrait told the unusual love story of a beautiful Venetian painter and a survivor of a Nazi concentration camp. The Estorick Collection exhibition about husband and wife artists Zoran Music and Ida Barbarigo had a particular resonance because of their relationship with Eric and Salome Estorick.

From Morandi to Guttuso: Masterpieces from the Alberto Della Ragione Collection

EXHIBITION

12 January 2011 - 3 April 2011

Containing works by artists including Filippo de Pisis, Fortunato Depero and Giorgio de Chirico, the collection of Alberto Della Ragione provides an extraordinarily comprehensive overview of Italian Modernism.

Against Mussolini: Art and the Fall of a Dictator

EXHIBITION

22 September 2010 - 19 December 2010

Whilst several major exhibitions have explored the propaganda imagery of Fascist Italy, art produced by those opposed to Mussolini and his regime has received surprisingly little attention. Against Mussolini brought together works produced in Italy and abroad throughout the Fascist era (1922- 43), but focused particularly on the period immediately after the dictator's fall from power following Italy's disastrous Second World War campaign. These last tragic years saw the re-emergence of Mussolini as the puppet leader of a Fascist administration in the north of the country and the onset of a bitter civil war, as the Resistance fought alongside the Allies to restore democracy and liberate Italy from tyranny.

Siren City: Photographs by Johnnie Shand Kydd

EXHIBITION

1 July 2010 - 12 September 2010

Johnnie Shand Kydd is an acclaimed documentary photographer perhaps best known for his portraits of artist friends such as Tracy Emin and Damien Hirst. In 2000 he embarked on a longterm project to capture the dramatic and chaotic world of Naples. Having never visited the city before, he soon developed a relationship with it that he described as 'akin to a drug habit', returning again and again over the next eight years.

Another Country: London Painters in Dialogue with Modern Italian Art

EXHIBITION

28 April 2010 - 20 June 2010

Another Country brought together ten highly respected contemporary painters: Tony Bevan, Arturo Di Stefano, Luke Elwes, Timothy Hyman, Andrzej Jackowski, Merlin James, Glenys Johnson, Alex Lowery, Lino Mannocci and Thomas Newbolt.

On the Move: Visualising Action

EXHIBITION

13 January 2010 - 18 April 2010

Although the problem of depicting movement in painting and sculpture had concerned artists for many centuries, the birth of the Futurist movement in 1909 signalled a renewed interest in the subject. Taking as its starting point the Estorick's own collection of Futurist masterpieces, On the Move drew on a wide range of material in many different media to provide an in-depth examination of this complex and fascinating theme.

Terra Incognita: Italy's Ceramic Revival

EXHIBITION

30 September 2009 - 20 December 2009

Terra Incognita: Italy's Ceramic Revival presented an extraordinary selection of fifty key works drawn from the Bernd and Eva Hockemeyer Collection of twentieth-century Italian ceramic art.

Workshop Missoni: Daring to be Different

EXHIBITION

1 July 2009 - 20 September 2009

Missoni is one of the leading and most distinctive fashion houses in the world. The Missoni style has evolved out of a long-standing collaboration between the husband and wife team of Ottavio and Rosita Missoni. In the late 1940s, Ottavio Missoni established a workshop producing jersey tracksuits that were sported by the Italian Athletic Team at the 1948 London Olympics, where Ottavio himself qualified for the final of the 400m hurdle race.

Framing Modernism: Architecture & Photography in Italy 1925-65

EXHIBITION

29 April 2009 - 21 June 2009

An exhibition of period photographs from the British Architectural Library Photographs Collection. Ever since its inception, photography has profoundly influenced the practice and study of architecture. This was especially true with the advent of Modernism which, during the 1920s, brought architecture and photography into closer alliance than ever before.

Futurism 100!: Unique Forms

EXHIBITION

14 January 2009 - 19 April 2009

20 February 2009 marked the centenary of the publication of F.T. Marinetti's Futurist manifesto in the popular Paris newspaper Le Figaro. Although Marinetti himself was a poet, his ideas swiftly attracted artists from other disciplines.

Cut & Paste: European Photomontage 1920 - 1945

EXHIBITION

24 September 2008 - 21 December 2008

The manipulation of photographic imagery is as old as photography itself, but the modernist conception of photomontage was a radical extension of techniques and creative attitudes that first emerged in Cubist, Futurist and Dadaist collage, in which cut-out photographs and fragments of newsprint from illustrated journals were pasted into drawings and paintings.

Frozen in Time: The Mountain Photography of Vittorio Sella

EXHIBITION

25 June 2008 - 14 September 2008

Vittorio Sella was born in 1859 in Biella, about 50 miles north-east of Turin in the foothills of the Italian Alps, not far from the peaks of Mont Blanc and Monte Rosa. His father had written the first Italian language treatise on photography in 1856 and his uncle Quintino Sella, a distinguished statesman and keen Alpinist, founded the Italian Alpine Club in 1863.

Paper Trail: Prints from the Merlini Collection

EXHIBITION

16 April 2008 - 15 June 2008

Over a period of sixty years following the Second World War, Vito Merlini (1923-2007) amassed an extraordinary collection of prints whilst working as a doctor in his Tuscan home town of Peccioli. Following his first acquisition – a lithograph by Ardengo Soffici – the collection grew until by the turn of the century it numbered around 1,000 works, comprising prints by both Italian and international artists from de Chirico to Mirò, Guttuso to Sutherland. Towards the end of his life, 279 works from the collection were presented by Merlini to Peccioli, and it is from this donation that the exhibition was drawn.

A Decade of Discovery: Ten Years of the Estorick Collection

EXHIBITION

16 January 2008 - 6 April 2008

Comprising over 120 works by many of the most prominent Italian artists of the Modernist era, the Estorick Collection opened to the public in January 1998. Described by Sir Nicholas Serota as 'one of the finest collections of early 20th century Italian art anywhere in the world', it was formed in the late 1940s and early 1950s by Eric Estorick (1913-93), an American art-dealer, writer and political scientist, and is the only collection in the United Kingdom dedicated to this turbulent and fascinating period of Italian art.

Piety and Pragmatism: Spiritualism in Futurist Art

EXHIBITION

26 September 2007 - 23 December 2007

When Futurism was founded in 1909, its hostility towards the institution of the Catholic Church was pronounced, and accompanied by a rejection of Christian concepts of morality. Despite this, the publication of a 'Manifesto of Futurist Sacred Art' in 1931 inspired a flowering of religious painting that constitutes perhaps one of the most unexpected episodes in the history of the movement.

Lucio Fontana: At the Roots of Spatialism

EXHIBITION

27 June 2007 - 9 September 2007

Lucio Fontana (1899-1968) was one of the most influential artists of the 20th century. His enduring experiments with space are landmarks in the history of abstract art and led many artists, including Yves Klein and Piero Manzoni, to consider him to be the father of contemporary art. His work can be seen as prefiguring much of the conceptual art being created today.

A Slap in the Face! Futurists in Russia

EXHIBITION

28 March 2007 - 17 June 2007

After founding Futurism in 1909, F.T. Marinetti’s ambition was to establish an international movement that would develop his own group’s activities, achievements and interests. Futurist ideas quickly became familiar to Russian artists through translations of manifestos and newspaper articles, yet Marinetti’s visit to the country in 1914 provoked mixed responses. While many artists admired his revolutionary zeal others resented what they perceived to be Marinetti’s cultural imperialism.

Barbed Wit: Italian Satire of the Great War

EXHIBITION

10 January 2007 - 19 March 2007

This exhibition displayed thirty-six large scale original designs by little-known artists from the archives of the Imperial War Museum, London. The coloured drawings were translated into black and white postcards for mass reproduction throughout Italy. Postcards first appeared in Austria from 1869 and became increasingly popular across Europe and America, reaching a ‘golden age’ in the first decade of the 20th century.

Luigi Russolo: Life and Works of a Futurist

EXHIBITION

4 October 2006 - 17 December 2006

This exhibition was the first major retrospective to be devoted to that most enigmatic of Futurists, Luigi Russolo (1885-1947). A signatory of the ‘Manifesto of the Futurist Painters’ in 1910, Russolo is perhaps best known as a pioneering musician, his theory of the ‘art of noises’ a landmark in the history of avant-garde music. By contrast, Russolo’s pictorial work remains little-known, particularly that of his post-Futurist phase.

Italian Abstraction, 1910-1960

EXHIBITION

28 June 2006 - 24 September 2006

Abstraction first emerged in Italian art around 1910, when painters belonging to the Futurist school began developing their studies of light and motion in bold new directions, depicting ‘the essential force lines of speed’ as brightly-coloured arcs and thrusting, jagged forms.

Morandi's Legacy: Influences on British Art

EXHIBITION

5 April 2006 - 18 June 2006

Giorgio Morandi is one of the most famous and popular Italian painters of the twentieth century, best known for his contemplative still life paintings of familiar objects such as bottles, vases, jugs and boxes, painted in subtle combinations of colour and a narrow range of tones. Yet his work also contains radical ideas about the nature of picture-making and artistic practice that have made it consistently relevant to subsequent generations of artists.

Responding to Rome: British Artists in Rome, 1995-2005

EXHIBITION

18 January 2006 - 26 March 2006

This exhibition, supported by the Henry Moore Foundation, showed the work of thirty-five selected contemporary British artists who have been awarded scholarships at the British School at Rome over the past decade.

From Futurism to Arte Povera: Works from the Marcello Levi Collection

EXHIBITION

14 September 2005 - 18 December 2005

Marcello Levi is one of the leading collectors of contemporary art in Italy. He began collecting works by members of the Futurist movement, such as Giacomo Balla and Gerardo Dottori, before becoming one of the earliest supporters of Arte Povera in the late 1960s. His friendship with the artists enabled him to acquire a remarkable series of works that have rarely been shown in public.

Viewpoints: Italy in Black and White

EXHIBITION

15 June 2005 - 4 September 2005

This exhibition offered a rare opportunity to admire and explore an outstanding private archive of photographs by the most important modern and contemporary Italian masters, selected from the Prelz Oltramonti Collection.

Avant-Garde Graphics, 1918-1934

EXHIBITION

9 March 2005 - 5 June 2005

The inter-war period was a time of extraordinary change in Europe and a moment of radical inventiveness in the history of art and culture. The advance of the machine age brought with it mass production and a new sense of internationalism. This ‘heroic’ period of modernity found a particularly forceful expression in graphic design and photomontage, with new techniques enabling a fusion of typography, painting and photography for artistic, commercial and political ends.

Futurist Skies: Italian Aeropainting

EXHIBITION

6 January 2005 - 20 February 2005

Dominating Futurist art throughout the 1930s, aeropainting embodied the movement’s fascination with technology, speed and the machine, striving to capture the visual and metaphysical sensations of flight in dramatic and often intensely poetic imagery. This exhibition offered visitors an exhilarating birds-eye view of the world through the eyes of the Futurist artists.

Still Life in 20th Century Italy

EXHIBITION

30 September 2004 - 19 December 2004

In the earliest years of the twentieth century the still life genre underwent something of a renaissance. As artists became increasingly concerned with purely formal, pictorial values, it came to be considered a perfect vehicle for experimentation with new aesthetics, free from any complicating narrative dimensions.

Fratelli Alinari: A Photographic Tradition

EXHIBITION

23 June 2004 - 19 September 2004

The exhibition celebrated 150 years of Fratelli Alinari, the renowned photographic studio that documented the changing cultural and social landscape of Italy from the mid-nineteenth century.

XXIV Journeys: Sol LeWitt - Mimmo Paladino

EXHIBITION

28 April 2004 - 13 June 2004

This highly unusual venture was the result of an encounter between Mimmo Paladino and Sol LeWitt in Rome in 2002. Both artists each began twelve works in gouache. These half-completed paintings were then exchanged and finished by the other artist.

Blasting the Future! Vorticism in Britain, 1910-1920

EXHIBITION

4 February 2004 - 18 April 2004

Vorticism is one of the most important and distinctive avant-garde art movements of the early twentieth century, and was Britain’s most significant contribution to the development of modernism.

Cinema Italia: Classic Italian Film Posters

EXHIBITION

17 September 2003 - 25 January 2004

Italy has produced some of cinema’s most striking moments as well as a rich cavalcade of writers, producers, directors and stars whose work has been acclaimed as classics of their kind, not only within Italy but also of internationally. This exhibition of posters offered an insight into the most important and innovative periods of Italian cinema, and paid homage to the artists and designers who created them.

Painting Light: Italian Divisionism, 1885-1910

EXHIBITION

4 June 2003 - 7 September 2003

Inspired by the achievements of the Impressionists and Neo-Impressionists, the school of painting known as Divisionism emerged in Italy around the end of the nineteenth century. Like their French counterparts, these artists were fascinated with capturing effects of light, and this pioneering exhibition explored their attempts to evoke that most elusive of subjects.

Giorgio de Chirico and the Myth of Ariadne

EXHIBITION

22 January 2003 - 18 April 2003

In association with the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Giorgio di Chirico (1888-1978) was one of the most innovative and controversial artists of the twentieth century. His enigmatic paintings, with their dream-like imagery of deserted city squares filled with mysterious shadows, stopped clocks and sleeping statues, had a profound influence on modern art.

Under Mussolini: Decorative and Propaganda Arts of the Twenties and Thirties

EXHIBITION

2 October 2002 - 22 December 2002

This major exhibition provided an evocative analysis of the events and tastes of the Fascist era through fine examples of furniture, glassware, ceramics, painting, sculpture and graphic design. Many of the leading artistic figures of the day were represented, including Gio Ponti, Duilio Cambellotti, Mario Sironi, Galileo Chini, Marcello Piacentini and Gerardo Dottori.

Pasta: Italian Culture on a Plate

EXHIBITION

26 June 2002 - 15 September 2002

Pasta comes in hundreds of shapes and sizes and is covered by thousands of sauces. It is fast food but good food, as unambiguous as a symbol of Italy as a Vespa or Fellini. It is also the most universal dish on the planet.

Mario Sironi: Between Futurism and the Urban Landscape, 1914-1920

EXHIBITION

3 May 2002 - 9 June 2002

This exhibition provided an insight into a crucial phase in the artistic development of one of Italy’s most stimulating artists, showing his unpublished works on paper.

Planespotting: Italian Aviation Posters, 1910-1943

EXHIBITION

6 February 2002 - 28 April 2002

This exhibition chronicled the golden age of Italian aviation through forty-four posters of immense artistic and historical interest, on loan to the Estorick Collection from the Massimo and Sonia Cirulli Archive, New York. One of the earliest and most effective means of mass communication, the poster was the perfect medium through which to stimulate public interest in the aeronautical endeavours and achievements of the day.

Carlo Carrà: Works on Paper

EXHIBITION

10 October 2001 - 20 January 2002

Carlo Carrà (1881-1966) is one of the most important Italian artists and writers on art of the first half of the twentieth century. Carrà was one of the founding painters and propagandists of Italian Futurism in 1910, and his early Futurist work, Leaving the Theatre (1910-11) is in our permanent collection. He also painted in the style of the Metaphysical School along with Giorgio de Chirico and Giorgio Morandi between 1915 and 1919. This exhibition concentrates on Carrà’s drawing, a daily activity and aide-memoire for the artist, which resulted in thousands of works during his lifetime.

Giorgio Morandi: The Collectors' Eye

EXHIBITION

16 May 2001 - 26 August 2001

This exhibition comprised twelve oil paintings from four private collections in Florence, together with ten drawings and eighteen etchings from the Estorick Collection, ranging in date from 1912 to 1959. The core of the exhibition comprised nine paintings from the collection of Roberto Longhi (1890-1970), the most important Italian art historian and critic of his time, as well as a life-long friend of the artist and collector of his work. Other works included a 1935 landscape given by Longhi to his doctor, Professor Noferi, a 1943 landscape that was a wedding present Longhi gave to the critic Piero Bigongiari, and a 1936 landscape from the Alberto Della Ragione collection.

Futurism & Photography

EXHIBITION

24 January 2001 - 22 April 2001

At the turn of the twentieth century, parascientific experiments, spiritualist photography, multi-portraits, montage effects and the chronophotographs of Etienne-Jules Marey provided a rich background against which a Futurist photo-aesthetic gradually formed.

Fortunato Depero: Carnival of Colour

EXHIBITION

4 October 2000 - 22 December 2000

Fortunato Depero (1892-1960) was born in the mountainous region of Trentino, North Italy, attending the Scuola Reale Elisabettina, an applied arts institute. He was a painter, a sculptor, decorative artist, poet and writer as well as an interior, stage, costume and graphic designer. This exhibition featured 108 of his works, showing the range of media in which the artist excelled.

Zoran Music

EXHIBITION

2 June 2000 - 17 September 2000

The life and work of Zoran Music spans most of the twentieth century, and bears witness to some of its most terrible events. This exhibition was the first of Music’s work in Britain for over half a century, and brought together most phases of his career, from the early Dalmation landscapes, Dachau works, and Venetian scenes to the remarkable late self-portraits.

Primo Conti: A Futurist Prodigy

EXHIBITION

15 March 2000 - 21 May 2000

This exhibition was organised to celebrate the centenary of Primo Conti's birth. Tracing the developments in his own style, it looked at his place within the Futurist constellation, and how the Futurist Florentine group influenced him between 1913 and 1919, before he moved away from Futurism to explore other inspirations and influences.

The Art of Noises: Derek Shiel, Sound Sculptures

EXHIBITION

2 February 2000 - 5 March 2000

Derek Shiel, an Irish artist and writer, was the Collection’s first artist-in-residence. He worked closely with musicians, music educators, a storyteller, puppets and an animateur on a series of interactive workshop sessions around his exhibition of sound sculptures.

Gino Severini: From Futurism to Classicism

EXHIBITION

6 October 1999 - 9 January 2000

Gino Severini (1883-1966) is one of the major figures in twentieth century Italian art. His exhibition at London’s Marlborough Gallery in 1913 was a success de scandale, provoking critical acclaim and bewilderment in the popular press. It was not until 1969, when Eric Estorick organised a retrospective of 72 works at the Grosvenor Gallery, that Severini’s work was seen again in Britain.

Morandi and his Time: Paintings from the Giovanardi Collection

EXHIBITION

26 May 1999 - 19 September 1999

This exhibition represented a rare opportunity to see nineteen paintings by Giorgio Morandi (1890-1964), spanning his career from 1914, his early Futurist phase, up to 1957, together with fourteen works by his contemporaries. They are selected from the collection of Augusto and Francesca Giovanardi, who shared a passion for mid-century Italian painting, particularly still lifes and landscapes.

Zang Tumb Tumb: The Futurist Graphic Revolution

EXHIBITION

6 January 1999 - 11 April 1999

This exhibition explored the editorial production of the Futurist movement (1909-1944) through manifestos, magazines, posters, parole-in-liberta and books. The Futurists proclaimed a desire to destroy all libraries in 1909 when, ironically, their literary production would have substantially increased the holdings of any such establishment. They also orchestrated a fundamental renovation of the book in graphic form, just as it faced a treat from the introduction of radio and cinema.

Balla and Futurist Italy: Paintings from the Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna, Rome

EXHIBITION

9 September 1998 - 13 December 1998

This exhibition of 23 Futurist works on loan from the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna, Rome, linked the first and second waves of Futurism through the works of Giacomo Balla (1871-1958). Balla was already well established as an artist and teacher before coming under the influence of Futurism in 1910. His extraordinary versatility and creativity had a profound influence on his contemporaries and the eight canvases on show were from his most vibrant Futurist period.