Fausto Pirandello. La magia del quotidiano (The magic of everyday life)

The exhibition at the Accademia Nazionale di San Luca, curated by Fabio Benzi and Flavia Matitti, dedicated to Fausto Pirandello (1899-1975), one of the protagonists of 20th-century Italian art, on the fiftieth anniversary of his death, brings together approximately thirty paintings, selected from among the artist's major masterpieces, along with a selection of works on paper, with a focus on pastels, Pirandello's favored medium in the post-World War II period. The exhibition was organized in conjunction with the Archaeological and Landscape Park of the Valley of the Temples in Agrigento, in collaboration with the Fausto Pirandello Association.The year 2025 in fact, marks the fiftieth anniversary of the death of Fausto Pirandello, who died in Rome on November 30, 1975, and the anniversary offered the opportunity to bring a key figure of 20th-century Italian painting back to the centre of public attention: an artist, son of the great playwright and Nobel Prize winner Luigi Pirandello, of Sicilian roots and educated in Rome and Paris, capable of navigating with originality the transition from the existential realism of his early works to the intense "abstract-concrete" language of the post-war period.

After the major retrospective in 1976 at the National Gallery of Modern Art in Rome, and numerous exhibitions in Italy and abroad, the last public exhibition in Rome was in 2010, also at the National Gallery of Modern Art. The fiftieth anniversary therefore offers an ideal opportunity to pay homage to this important artist in his hometown. The choice of the Accademia Nazionale di San Luca is also motivated by the artist's historic connection to the institution; Pirandello was elected a Resident Academician of Merit in 1947 and a National Academician in 1948.

The exhibition, structured chronologically and critically, conveys the full complexity and continuous innovative drive of the artist's entire oeuvre.

The selection of paintings presented in the ground-floor rooms of Palazzo Carpegna, home to the Academy, opens with works from his early 1920s, marked by an exaggerated realism that seems to anticipate, in intensity and visual focus, the merciless objectivity of Lucian Freud. This is followed by works from his Parisian period (1928–1930), imbued with surrealist influences and enigmatic atmospheres, along with the great masterpieces of the 1930s, with compositions of strong plastic and dramatic impact, which place Pirandello among the leading interpreters of European art between the two world wars (his work was prominently featured in the Realisme exhibition at the Centre Pompidou in 1980). The final room presents the postwar period, animated by a profound renewal of form and colour, which received recognition in Italy and abroad -particularly in the United States - during the 1950s and 1960s.

The large room on the first floor also features a selection of works on paper, along with a single painting, a Self-Portrait. This group of works reveals the artist's most intimate side, his constant exploration of form, and his objective yet dramatic vision of reality.

During the exhibition's opening hours, visitors can also visit the Galleria Accademica, which houses masterpieces by Gianlorenzo Bernini, Antonio Canova, Francesco Hayez, Peter Paul Rubens, and Raffaello Sanzio.

Finally, we would like to remind you that for the occasion, the new room dedicated to the important Gian Enzo Sperone donation is open to the public for the first time. It brings together 33 works of art by some of the most significant protagonists of the 17th and 18th centuries, the early 20th century, and contemporary art, including Vincenzo Camuccini, Guercino, Anton Raphael Mengs, Filippo de Pisis, and Giulio Paolini.

The exhibition is accompanied by a valuable catalogue published by the Accademia Nazionale di San Luca, featuring institutional introductions by Marco Tirelli, former President of the Academy, and Roberto Sciarratta, Director of the Valle dei Templi Park; introductory contributions by Silvio Pirandello, President of the Fausto Pirandello Association, and Giovanna Carlino Pirandello, President of the Fausto Pirandello Foundation; as well as essays by Fabio Benzi and Flavia Matitti, curators of the exhibition, and Claudio Strinati, Secretary General of the Accademia Nazionale di San Luca.

Photo: Fausto Pirandello - Bathers in the water, 1961, oil on panel, 104 x 137 cm - signed lower left Pirandello Rome, private collection