Date: 16/12/2021

Event:Herta Ottolenghi Wedekind. The dream of the total work of art

curated by

Giulia Gomiero, Elena Lago, Sabrina Spinazzè

Daughter of the entrepreneur and banker Paul Wedekind and wife of the Genoese Count Arturo Ottolenghi, Herta Ottolenghi Wedekind (Berlin 1885 – Acqui 1953) was an enlightened patron of the arts and one of the main protagonists of the extraordinary decorative arts season of the 1920s and 1930s.

A student of the German artist Hans Stoltenberg-Lerche in Rome between 1910 and 1912, she made her debut in the field of sculpture and in 1922 patented an innovative procedure for creating drawings for works of applied art based on the symmetrical duplication of abstract motifs obtained by means of random ink strokes, similar to the contemporary ‘Rorschach blots’ used in psychodiagnostics. Through these forms, used in the decoration of tapestries, carpets, cushions, screens, furnishing fabrics, both woven and hand-embroidered, the artist triumphed in the major decorative arts exhibitions of the time, in Munich, Paris, Berlin, Monza, Viareggio and Milan.

Herta Ottolenghi Wedekind’s tapestries on display here, affirming the total freedom and randomness of the artistic gesture, reveal surprising connections with contemporary Surrealist and Dadaist poetics, expressing an unlimited manifestation of the spirit in lively forms and fluctuating colours. The works on display come from the private collections of Stefano Baia Curioni, Giovanna Forlanelli, Giulia Gomiero, Giacomo Lorello and Massimo Minini, with the courtesy of Galleria Gomiero and Galleria Berardi.