22 December 2018 – 3 June 2019

In conjunction with the architectural redevelopment of Palazzo Massari and the contextual closure of the museums housed there, the Ferrara Arte Foundation and the Modern and Contemporary Art Galleries organize an exhibition that aims to restore the works of Filippo de Pisis to public enjoyment. In the spaces of the Padiglione d’Arte Contemporanea will be exhibited a rich corpus of works of the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art “Filippo de Pisis”, to retrace the salient phases of the artist’s creative parable.
Following the research conducted on the Raimondi Archive held at the University of Bologna, the exhibition will present a selection of letters, postcards and autograph texts that from the Twenties to the Fifties De Pisis sent to a fraternal friend, the Bolognese writer and critic Giuseppe Raimondi . A private and fascinating documentation that offers an unprecedented context to the chronological reconstruction of the painter’s career. De Pisis’s ability to express the soul of nature, of objects, of people, of places – above all Ferrara as a distant metaphysical enchantment – finds its basis in literature, the favorite medium during his youth to filter the surrounding reality. An expressive modality connatural to his imaginary that does not end even when it is completed, between the Roman apprenticeship and the transfer to Paris in the spring of 1925, the definitive passage to painting.
Exemplary of this connection is the “Still Life with the Kingfisher” (1925), where the Pascoli theme of memory is admirably represented. While in the mysterious and suspended atmospheres of “Cipolle di Socrate” and “marine still life”, made between 1927 and 1932, the poet-painter reconsiders his personal relationship with the metaphysics of De Chirico, known in Ferrara in 1915. years of maturity, for De Pisis it becomes preponderant to transcribe on the canvas pure emotions in front of the object of representation. Here the figurative impressions captured between the corners of the French metropolis become urban views (“La Coupole”, 1928) or still lifes of original conception (“I pesci”, 1928). But we must also remember works meditated in the tranquility of the study as the “fulminate Gladiolus” (1930) and the touching lyricism as “The hare” (1933). In the chronological path, two thematic sections intersect. The first revolves around the ephebic beauty, theme incessantly transposed with pencils or brushes on the sheets of a very rich “diary for images”. On the other hand there is a new dialogue between some beautiful still lifes by De Pisis and the rare ones created by Giovanni Boldini: a symbolic passage of a witness between two generations and two distant visions of painting. The artistic activity of De Pisis closes with the rough and pale works dating back to the clinic in Villa Fiorita (“The rose in the bottle”, 1950, “The pears – Villa Fiorita”, 1953), ideally suggested environment in the closed space and white of the last room on the upper floor to emphasize the secluded and melancholic dimension of the last stretch of life.
“De Pisis – The poetry of the moment”, 22 December 2018 – 2 June 2019, Pavilion of Contemporary Art, Corso Porta Mare 5, Ferrara.

Organizers Fondazione Ferrara Art and Galleries of Modern and Contemporary Art of Ferrara – Curated by Lorenza Roversi
Hours Tuesday to Sunday 9.30am-1pm and 3pm-6pm
Full admission € 4.00 reduced € 2.00 (young people aged between 18 and 30, owners of the Youngercard, over 65, university students, groups of at least 15 people, holders of the ticket for the Palazzo dei Diamanti exhibitions, affiliated categories, teachers of first and second degree with card) free under 18s, school groups, disabled people and their carers, tourist guides and journalists with card, conventioned categories For security reasons the exhibition is only partially accessible to the disabled.
Information and reservations: tel. 0532 244949, email diamonds@comune.fe.it, website www.palazzodiamanti.it
Press Office: ESSECI Studio – Sergio Campagnolo 049 663499 | info@studioesseci.net | www.studioesseci.net

(Press release by Gallerie d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea – Ferrara Arte Foundation)