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.
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.
Horse & Dog is a film by the artist Boyd Webb. It revels in the elegantly observed absurdities that have long been a feature of Webb’s work with photography, sculpture, performance and the moving image.
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.
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 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.
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an insight into a crucial phase in the artistic development of one of Italy’s most stimulating artists, showing his unpublished works on paper.
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 (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.
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.