A hall in the Morandi Museum
Bologna's Morandi Museum has reopened with a new layout to present its permanent collection
of works by the artist to whom it is dedicated. The museum has been open since 1993 following a sizable donation to the Municipality of Bologna by the artist's sister, Maria Teresa Morandi, which the city joined to a pre-existing collection
preserved in the Gallery of Modern Art in Bologna (which, it should be noted, includes the better
part of Roman art aficionado Francesco Paolo Ingrao's collection). The new, chronologically ordered layout, invites the viewer to compare and contrast
the different techniques used, and illustrates the stylistic and chronological course undertaken by
the artist who came to prominence at the peak of the avant-gardes. Morandi set himself apart
as being a cultured man who kept up-to-date with all the latest trends in modern European art, not
through his own travels (of which there were relatively few), but rather thanks to the books and
publications received frequently from shrewd art critics.
Closed for a short time for remodeling, the Museum now reopens with a new look. Back on
display, in particular, are thirty-three masterpieces which had established the success of the anthological « Giorgio Morandi 1890-1964 » exhibit, which first ran at the
Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, before heading to the Museum of Modern Art in
Bologna. The new exhibit layout comes as part of a particularly significant year for the art
of Morandi: in addition to the cited exhibit at the MAMBO, organized in partnership with the Met,
and the exhibition on his engravings held at the Palazzo di Diamanti of Ferrara, the artist's residence-museum will open just after the close of summer in via
Fondazza. The restoration of the home was co-financed by the Municipality of Bologna
and by Unindustria Bologna, and was created based on the design by the Iosa Ghini Studio.
The renewed exhibit itinerary – as opposed to the previous exhibit – underscores all of the phases of Morandi's artistic journey. Maintaining a strictly chronological
succession of the works, useful for contrasting the different techniques with which the artist tested his mettle, allows for a
thorough understanding of the artist's modus operandi, from the unmistakable sign to the typical chromatic scale of his
palette. The sections planned range from painting to engravings, from drawings to watercolors, highlighting the
variations in those themes most dear to him. To that end, the first hall was designed to
accommodate and display works from private collections, generously loaned to the museum in order to
enhance the already extensive patrimony of the Gallery of Modern Art Institute's permanent
collection, with the main nucleus of works made up of those donated by Maria Teresa Morandi.
The cycle of thematic exhibitions opens with the collection belonging to Valerio De Paolis, which includes five paintings, nine etchings, and a watercolor painting (examples of great
historical interest and quality) from the 1941 Still Life, which had belonged to sculptor Giacomo Manzù, to the 1963 Still Life from the Venezuelan collection of José and Beatrìz Plaza. The exhibit
itinerary continues with a room dedicated to Morandi's early successes, in which landscapes and still lifes predominate. Here, a patently experimental
attitude is visible, as well as thoughtful reflection on different expressive languages. In
that vein, the Landscape created in 1913 is on display, which has an evident Cézannian structure in terms
of its composition, but which at the same time is able to presage the rapt silence and precision that characterized Morandi's entire oeuvre.
The visit continues in the sections dedicated to the theme of flowers and shells, evidence of the artist's intensive studies on the
subject. These are motifs he explored before moving into the mature phase of his stylistic
journey, one marked by painting that grows ever more abstract as he 'dematerializes'
forms. With the purchase of the house in which Morandi lived and worked for nearly all his life,
and with the rebuilding of his studio in its original location, the Municipality of Bologna has
successfully completed the project of joining the museum's exhibit itinerary with corollary
opportunities for exploring the artistry and the life of one of the key figures of the 20th century.
