Pedro Cano. Siete e Roma

Until 7 June 2026, the Casino dei Principi at Villa Torlonia hosts Pedro Cano. Siete e Roma, an exhibition dedicated to two key chapters in the renowned Spanish contemporary painter’s oeuvre.

Curated by Giorgio Pellegrini and coordinated by Raquel Vázquez-Dodero Fontes, the exhibition path, displaying over one hundred works, winds through the two floors of the elegant Casino, with a layout designed to distinguish and, at the same time, bring into dialogue the two main sections of the exhibition.

The first floor of the museum houses the black-and-white painting series Siete, consisting of seven triptychs – Play, Work, Bicycles, Interior, Jumping, Waiting, Carrying: 21 oil-on-canvas works, created between 2018 and 2019 on horizontal panels measuring 120 x 180 cm. These are accompanied by preparatory drawings and sketches that explore themes such as migration, injustice, work, suffering, solidarity, and mutual aid.

The ground floor brings together 48 works inspired by Rome, the city that has accompanied his life and creative work for more than half a century, mainly watercolours on paper, some of which are unreleased. Besides is a selection of seven travel notebooks with notes and views of the city, revealing Cano’s studio.

A journey through the artist’s creative universe: the structure of the exhibition path – with the universal and dramatic dimension of Siete on the upper floor and the lyrical and autobiographical dimension of Roma on the ground floor – creates a narrative and a continuous dialogue between collective experience and personal memory, between the human condition and lived experience, capable of conveying the artist’s richness, poetics and artistic research.

The exhibition, promoted by Roma Capitale, the Assessorato alla Cultura e al Coordinamento delle iniziative riconducibili alla Giornata della Memoria (Department of Culture and Coordination of initiatives related to Holocaust Remembrance Day), and the Sovrintendenza Capitolina ai Beni Culturali (Capitoline Superintendency for Cultural Heritage), is conceived and organised by the Fundación Pedro Cano thanks to the collaboration of the Instituto de las Industrias Culturales y las Artes in Murcia and with the support of the Fundación Cajamurcia, the Instituto Cervantes and Nostrum Simul. Museum services are provided by Zètema Progetto Cultura.

Photo: Pedro Cano, Porta Maggiore, 2025, watercolour on paper, 114x139, photo José Luis Montero