With a selection of oil paintings and works on paper from institutions and prestigious private collections, the exhibition offers an exhaustive look at the artistic career of the Genoese Pietro Gaudenzi (1880-1955), one of the most appreciated painters of his time.

From his formative years between La Spezia, Genoa and Rome to his retirement, in his maturity, in the village of Anticoli Corrado, Gaudenzi always remained faithful to a realist figuration, foreign to the formalisms of the avant-garde.
Through the search for a direct comparison with ancient painting, reinterpreted through the filter of a 20th-century sensibility, Gaudenzi tackled the major themes of tradition in his compositions: portraits, scenes of domestic intimacy, maternity, still lifes and, only rarely, landscapes. The absolute protagonists of Gaudenzi’s visual universe are the members of his family: his first wife, Candida Toppi, who died prematurely in 1920, their children and those from his second marriage to his sister-in-law Augusta Toppi. Understandably, the death of his first wife indelibly marked the painter’s life, influencing his production and choice of themes. After 1920, Gaudenzi explored sacred themes and religious painting more frequently.

The appreciation shown to him by the highest offices of State during the twenty-year Fascist period (in 1936 he won the Premio Mussolini, in 1939 he was appointed Accademico d’Italia, in 1940 the Cremona Prize, in 1942 the Duce commissioned a portrait of him) cost him the inevitable oblivion after the end of the Second World War.
Long forgotten by art-historical literature, despite his wide participation in major exhibitions between the two wars, he is now the focus of growing interest on the part of scholars: with a monographic slant, articulated through themed sections, the exhibition therefore proposes itself as an initial recognition of the painter’s work, necessary for a better understanding of his rediscovery.

The Mart is presenting all together for the first time works from public and private collections, including nine works from the Museo Nazionale Scienza e Tecnologia Leonardo da Vinci in Milan. Also part of this generous loan are the large Baptism from 1932 and the Portrait of Guido Rossi (1925), one of Gaudenzi’s major patrons.

Among the rarities in the exhibition is La mia scuola di Napoli (My School in Naples), a canvas from around 1938, never before exhibited in a public museum. The painting depicts Gaudenzi’s studio at the time he was teaching painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Naples and also represents one of his rare nudes.

The Berardi Galleria d’Arte is proud to have lent several works to the exhibition, including First Communion, Umbrella, Reflections, Portrait, and The Interrupted Painting.