Casorati at Palazzo Reale

The exhibition presents some of the artist's greatest masterpieces, including the cycle of Grandi tempere (1918-1920), and records the evolution of style and language after his definitive move to Turin, in the wake of the tragic death of his father. Here, in 1919, Felice Casorati settled in the house-studio where he would live for the rest of his life. For the first time since 1964, three important paintings, characterised by a bare, desolate spatial dimension and a metaphysical sense of disquieting loneliness, are brought together in a virtual triptych: Una Donna (or l'Attesa) – A Woman (or The Wait) – 1919, private collection, Un uomo (or Uomo delle botti) – A Man (or The Barrels Man) – 1919-20 and Bambina (or Ragazza con scodella) – Young Girl (or Girl with Bowl) – 1919, from the collection of the GAM - Galleria Civica d'Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Torino. The section is completed by the imposing and majestic Colazione (Breakfast, Castello di Rivoli - Museo d'Arte Contemporanea. Cerruti Collection), which portrays a family of only women, perhaps orphans or war widows, summarising Casorati's emotional and psychological state, in tune with the sense of mourning that pervades the early post-war years.

The twenties were opened by the masterpieces La donna e l'armatura (Woman and Armour) of 1921 (GAM Turin) and Silvana Cenni of 1922 (private collection), a metaphysical icon inspired by classical fifteenth-century refinement and Piero della Francesca's altarpieces in particular. Casorati's collaboration with Riccardo Gualino, collector, patron and entrepreneur, for whom the artist painted family portraits and designed, together with architect Alberto Sartoris, the small private theatre in their Turin residence, dates back to this period. The association is illustrated in the exhibition by the three Gualino portraits, the portrait of Alfredo Casella (private collection), composer and pianist, director of some of the concerts in the little theatre in Turin, and the dancers Raja and Bella Markman, protagonists with Cesarina Gualino, of the free dance performances under the Casorati friezes of the little theatre, documented by the bas-reliefs Donna con arco, L'incontro con la musica, Donna seduta con scodella (Woman with bow, The encounter with music, Seated woman with bowl), now in a private collection.

In 1924 Casorati participated, with a solo exhibition, in La Biennale di Venezia, which constituted an important moment of recognition and celebrity: of the fourteen works exhibited at the time, seven are shown again at Palazzo Reale. In addition to the three Gualino portraits, are exhibited in the dedicated room: Meriggio of 1923 (Revoltella Museum, Galleria d'Arte Moderna, Trieste), Natura morta con manichini (Still life with mannequins) of 1924 (Museo Novecento, Milan), Ritratto di Hena Rigotti (Portrait of Hena Rigotti, GAM Turin) and Duplice ritratto (Double portrait, private collection). In the mid- 1920s, Casorati developed the theme of Conversazioni, a virtual cycle inaugurated by the celebrated and still intriguing Conversazione platonica (Platonic Conversation) of 1925 (private collection). The painting, in which a man wearing a black hat sits next to a reclining and sensual female nude (the male sitter is the architect and friend Alberto Sartoris), was the protagonist of a long exhibition tour with its debut at the First Exhibition of the Italian Novecento in Milan in 1926, followed by intervals in Dresden (1926), Geneva, Zurich and Pittsburgh (1927), New York (1928) and the Barcelona Expo (1929), where it was awarded a gold medal.

At the exhibition, after many years hidden from public view, it will be possible to admire the extraordinary painting Annunciazione (Annunciation) of 1927, from a private collection. Chosen by the artist for the 1927 exhibitions of Italian art at the Musée Rath in Geneva and then at the Kunsthaus in Zurich, it now goes on public display once again. In the rarefied and still atmosphere of an interior, Casorati constructs an intimate scene in which the divine transpires from the specularity and symmetries through the irreconcilability of opposites: the natural light and the complex and enigmatic geometry of space. Included for the first time in an anthological exhibition, the painting marks an essential episode within the arc of Casorati's career.

Towards the end of the decade, Casorati's art was marked by a turning point leading towards an anti-classical approach, as witnessed in the exhibition by a series of marvellous still lifes. His painting opened up to landscape, tackled in the dialogue between interior and exterior in the poetic Daphne a Pavarolo (Daphne at Pavarolo) of 1934 (GAM Turin). This is followed by the cycle of paintings of young girls from the 1930s and 1940s, including Donne in barca (Women in a Boat) of 1933 (Galleria d'Arte Moderna Ricci Oddi, Piacenza) and Le sorelle Pontorno (The Pontorno Sisters) of 1937 (Unicredit ArtCollection), both showing a woman breastfeeding immersed in silent and intimate setting.

The last years are documented by still lifes, in which the old theme of eggs returns (the evidence of that 'Numerus, Mensura, Pondus' which is the heraldic motto of Casorati's art), along with that of the helmet crest – with Natura morta con l'elmo (Still Life with Helmet, 1947, GAM Turin), Uova e limoni (Eggs and Lemons, 1950, GAM Turin), Uova su fondo rosso (Eggs on a Red Background, 1953, private collection) – and a series of new subjects such as Eclissi di luna (Eclipse of the Moon, 1949, private collection) and Paralleli (Parallels, 1949, Regione Autonoma Valle d'Aosta Collection).

Always a music lover, Felice Casorati was not only an exceptional painter and a passionate pianist but also a set designer, working for Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, the Rome Opera House and La Scala in Milan between the 1930s and the 1950s. From the historical archives of La Scala, the exhibition displays many of his sketches made for operas such as Le Baccanti and Fidelio, or for ballets to music by Petrassi or de Falla: a nucleus that, at the end of the exhibition, will make it possible to get to know this side of the activity of the talented and multifaceted artist.

The exhibition is accompanied by an extensive catalogue published by Marsilio Arte with essays by the curators.

The exhibition is promoted by the Municipality of Milan-Culture and produced by Palazzo Reale and Marsilio Arte in collaboration with the Casorati Archive. Sponsor BPER Banca; ATM technical partner, with the support of Coop Lombardia.