Female artists in Rome 1910-1940. Paths between Secession, Futurism and Return to Order

The exhibition which opens at the Museums of Villa Torlonia-Casino dei Principi, presents a selection of almost 100 works including paintings, sculptures and photographs - belonging to the Capitoline collections - by female artists active in Rome during the twentieth century and exactly between 1910 and 1940, a period which covers the artists of the Secession, Futurism and the Return to Order.

Recent studies, in fact, document a large presence of female artists active in Rome during the twentieth century, who also exhibited at the Biennials, the Syndicates and the Quadrennials, as well as in the most important Roman galleries. Starting therefore from the works belonging to the Capitoline collections, the exhibition intends to highlight how, from the futurist movement, through the years of fascism up to the post-war period, the female painters and sculptors of those years participated very actively, with their artistic commitment, in the cultural life of the capital. The exhibition, divided into six sections - Between Symbolism and Secession; Through futurism; The inheritance of color; Everyday languages ​​between Metaphysics and Return to Order; Other realisms; In the gaze of Ghitta Carell – is articulated in an artistic journey that spans fifty years full of historical events: from the 1910s with the Roman Secessions, in which different styles prevailed such as Expressionism, Divisionism, Jugendstil, followed by Futurism; and, after the First World War which introduces the Twenty Years and in which the so-called Return to Order is established: that is, from the revival of classical canons and themes mediated by the early Renaissance and promoted by the magazine "Valori Plastici" in which metaphysics is also present of the de Chirico brothers.

Among the Italian and international artists present in the exhibition are the names of Evangelina Alciati, Teresa Berring, Wanda Biagini, Edita Broglio, Benedetta Cappa Marinetti, Ghitta Carell, Katy Castellucci, Leonetta Cecchi Pieraccini, Angela Cuneo Jacoangeli, Deiva De Angelis, Emilia de Divitiis , Maria Grandinetti Mancuso, Bice Lazzari, Pasquarosa Marcelli Bertoletti, Costanza Mennyey, Vittoria Morelli, Marisa Mori, Adriana Pincherle, Milena Pavlovic Barilli, Eva Quajotto, Mimì Quilici Buzzacchi, Antonietta Raphael, Virginia Tomescu Scrocco, Maria Immacolata Zaffuto, Emilia Zampetti Nava, Rouzena Zatkova.

The exhibition is promoted by Roma Capitale, Department of Culture, Capitoline Superintendence of Cultural Heritage, in collaboration with the Archives of the Twentieth Century and La Sapienza University of Rome.

Photo credits: Mari Grandinetti Mancuso, Still life abstraction (Still life), before 1930