Cortesi Gallery is pleased to announce the exhibition TRA MITO E MODERNITÀ. Pittura italiana del primo ’900 featuring fourteen works by eight leading figures of 20th-century Italian art: Giacomo Balla, Massimo Campigli, Giorgio de Chirico, Filippo de Pisis, Marino Marini, Alberto Savinio, Gino Severini, and Mario Sironi.
The exhibition explores how, through avant-garde experimentation and a return to classical traditions, Italian art managed to transform the historical contradictions of the period into images of universal meaning. The works on display bear witness to an era of radical renewal, where the celebration of modernity intertwines with classical memory, generating different yet complementary artistic languages.
The exhibition opens with the Futurism of Gino Severini, represented by Tramway sur le boulevard (1913), and Giacomo Balla, with Merli futuristi (1924), where the natural movement of birds and the city is transformed into rhythm and colour.
The dialogue continues with Alberto Savinio and Giorgio de Chirico. In Les fruits des Hespérides (1929), Savinio transforms myth into a dreamlike and poetic vision, while de Chirico, with Cavalli antichi in riva al mare (1929) and Argonauti sulla spiaggia (1930), reinterprets antiquity through a dreamlike lens, evoking suspended and mysterious atmospheres.
An entire section is dedicated to de Chirico’s works from the 1950s and 1960s, including his celebrated Piazze d’Italia, Venezia – Isola di San Giorgio and Cavalli Antichi. In these pieces, the artist reworks his most iconic subjects, adopting theatrical perspectives and more vivid colours, transforming classical memory into increasingly imaginative visions.
The final section of the exhibition highlights three complementary voices. Massimo Campigli, with Femmes au piano (1948) and Busto di donna (1956), reinvents the female figure as a timeless, archetypal form. Mario Sironi, with Con figure (1950s) and his Composizioni from the 1940s, conveys the monumental force of landscapes and compact human figures, almost sculpted in the pictorial material. Lastly, Marino Marini, with Cavallo e cavaliere (1955), renews equestrian iconography in a dramatic and expressive way, creating an allegory of the human condition.
Through these fourteen masterful works, the exhibition highlights how myth and modernity intertwine in a continuous dialogue: from Futurist dynamism to more enigmatic visions, to the monumentality of the post-war period. A journey through Italian art that demonstrates the 20th century’s ability to reinvent the past to interpret the present.