P. Fiorentino Oil on Wooden Board Italy 1993 - Hanging Clouds 1993

Venetian glimpse 1940

Oil on hardboard. Signed and dated lower right. The painting is part of the realist production of the 1930s-1940s by Pino Ponti, a Venetian artist who trained at the Academy with Virgilio Guidi. In this phase, his painting proposes an apparently light and improvised representation of reality, which is instead studiously elaborated and ambiguous. After the war, in which Pino Ponti participates as a partisan, his painting becomes dramatic, of denunciation, characterized by the presence of sparse forms, but pervaded by a certain restlessness and grotesque accents. The painting is presented in a frame.

Straitjacket

Sculpture made of candies. Nausicaa Berbenni was born in Trescore Balneario (BG) in 1983; now she lives and works in Milan. She studied at the Brera Academy and once taking over her father's bakery she could combine her passions, art and bakery, creating art pieces made of candies and sugar paste. The piece in question is a straitjacket that comes on a mannequin; it is made of sewn round candies that unfortunatelly had lost thair color because of the time going from a pstel color to a monochrome brownish tone that give to the art piece a more dramatice tone.

Studi per le "Persecuzioni" 1964

Group of four mixed techniques on paper, individually signed and dated 8/10/64, and further signature with title under the framed composition. These are preparatory sketches for the works that the artist exhibited at the exhibition, designed and created in 1967-68 with his friend Amilcare Rambelli at the Galleria del Grattacielo in Milan. Giorgio Bellandi, born in Milan in 1931, was a very talented set painter. Passionate about art from a very young age, he attended the Brera Academy and became an active part of the Milanese artistic environment of those years. Bellandi worked as a set designer at the Teatro alla Scala in Milan and made his debut as a painter in the 1950s by joining the existential realism, a very active artistic movement in Milan in the second half of the 1950s, becoming one of the exponents of this current. Existential Realism was originally based on the search for something different, an alternative both to informal painting and to the effects of existentialism, especially political, which had taken hold due to the damage caused by World War II. Ideologically these artists had in common the refusal towards authoritarianisms and towards social and political conformisms, in an environment oriented overall to the left. Bellandi is an artist gifted with talent and creativity, a lover of freedom of expression and beauty, and performs works of interesting reading with intense but harmonious chromatic tones. Passionate about Lake Como, he often came to the Lario in search of relaxation and inspiration. In '64 he participated in the Venice Biennale and in '65 he was invited to the IX Quadriennale in Rome. Very active painter, he realizes many exhibitions in national and international territory, up to the illness which unfortunately was fatal to him, in 1976.

Untitled 1958

Oil on canvas. Signed and dated lower right. The work of strong emotional impact proposes an almost monochromatic purple background, in which a few black and white strokes are inserted to define a silhouette curled up on the left, perhaps a human form, collected and closed in on itself. Born in 1934 in Viareggio, where he still lives, the painter and sculptor Mario Francesconi is considered one of the few survivors of Dadaism, which since the end of the 1950s has gone through the seasons of Italian and European art in a distinctly personal search for forms and techniques. Starting from his first solo show in 1959 he develops an artistic path that goes through different phases, often attributable to a passion for poor and recycled materials. His artistic activity moves between the areas of painting, sculpture, collage and installation and borders on the adjacent areas of poetry and literature, also thanks to friendships and professional relationships with some of the most significant figures of the intellectual world. Italian of the second half of the last century, from Emilio Villa to Cesare Garboli, from Leonardo Sciascia to Mario Luzi, from Cesare Zavattini to Pier Paolo Pasolini, from Alfonso Gatto to Sandro Penna to Venturino Venturi. The work is presented in a frame.

Poster printed in Cologno Monzese in 1967, in a limited edition of 500 copies. This is copy no. 7/500, enhanced by the dedication and autograph signature of the graphic designer Giorgio Tavaglione, author of the poster. It is the first manifesto of the beat movement and of the Italian underground culture, promoted in Milan since 1966. On that date, the magazine "Mondo Beat" was born, with director Melchiorre Gerbino, inspired by the pacifist protest movements of the Dutch PROVO, and close to the movements Italian anarchists. The young beatniks created an alternative information channel that represented the primary vehicle for disseminating the principles that animated the beat movement, as opposed to the official cultural and communication circuits. Within the magazines, and in general in the various beat activities, poetic writing assumed an essential role as an integral part of the practice of dissent, since it represented one of the main forms of expression and affirmation of a different ideal of life, as well as of a different idea of collectivity. Giorgio Tavaglione was one of the best-known artistic exponents of the beat movement: as a complete self-taught Giò he designed the posters, flyers and covers of the first Italian underground magazines of the 1960s; disappeared for years after a trip to India, he subsequently reappeared as a draftsman of tarot cards and talismans in the creation of which he transferred his excellent graphic quality, his typical meticulous and imaginative, esoteric and visionary style. The work is framed.

Caricatures of Gandusio and Melato

Tempera on paper. Signed at top right. Luigi Daniele Crespi was a painter, journalist and illustrator active in Rome from 1912 to 1940, of whom no other biographical information is available. Linked to the Futurist movement, he was also active in advertising posters and set design. His elegant caricatures and satirical drawings were published in many magazines and covers. In this drawing Crespi offers caricatures of two well-known show business personalities of the time, Antonio Gandusio (1875 - 1951), who was one of the most interesting Italian comic actors, both film and theatre, almost a commedia dell'arte mask, and Maria Melato (1885 - 1950), a theatre, radio and cinema actress. Framed.

In Brianza

Oil painting on canvas. At the bottom left there is the DB monogram. Title and gallery stamp on the back. The glimpse of the Brianza countryside, still flat, sees a shepherd who lets his cows graze in the meadows immediately outside the village, near the dirt road flanked by light poles; two bare and thin trunks stand vertically, almost parallel, dividing the scene into three shots. The work is presented in a coeval frame.

Oil on canvas. Signed lower right. On the back there is a label of participation in the 1960 exhibition of contemporary Italian painting in Milan, organized by the Society for Fine Arts and Permanent Exhibition of Milan. It is a broad glimpse of the city of Venice, taken from one of the islands in front of it, of which some boats moored at the pier can be seen; the scene is horizontally divided quite clearly into two parts, from the central sky line of the city: above the sky, shaded in blue-grey tones, below the sea, with shades instead veering towards green. The atmosphere is clear, of absolute stillness, of immobility. Ezio Pastorio, originally from Cremona but transplanted to Valseriana after his studies, is considered "a great Italian master of the 20th century, who knew how to renew the artistic language of the landscape while maintaining a strong link with 19th century painting". His production is post-impressionist in nature, especially in the large landscape production that depicts the Po and Bergamo plains, the Venetian lagoon and some Parisian glimpses, admired during some travels. In his works, Pastorio creates suggestive atmospheres using infinite ranges of colours, which harmonize and sometimes even contrast, but always presented as a transparency which annuls the static nature of the representation and with a delicacy which expresses his devout religiosity towards nature and the created. The work, coming from a private collection, is presented in a frame.

Ligurian Beach

Oil on canvas. Signed lower left. It is a glimpse of the Ligurian Riviera, near a cove, surmounted by houses close to the coast. Berto Ferrari, born and always lived in Liguria, was a skilled and sensitive marine and landscape painter of the post-impressionist tradition, who painted the beauties of the Ligurian Riviera and numerous views of the Apennine hinterland. The painting has drops of color and traces of restoration. It is in a coeval frame.

The garden of the house of Camerano Casasco

Watercolor and ink on paper. Signed and dated September 14, 1952 in the lower left corner; location at the bottom right. On the back this title of the work of the famous Russian set designer, painter and draftsman, who since 1935 was the main scenographer of the Teatro Alla Scala in Milan. In an exposed frame.

Mixed media (pencil and watercolor) on paper. Signed at the bottom. On one of them there is also the date (1946 and 1947). It is a small collection of sketches on paper, six faces of children and women and four landscapes, still with pencil strokes and incomplete watercolor paints, in the typical ranges of Mantovani, those clear and transparent colors that are considered one of its characteristic features. Lugi Mantovani, Milanese by birth and training, established himself in the artistic panorama and became an active part in the Milanese cultural cenacles of the city, to which he dedicated his production, consisting mainly of landscapes and city views. The paintings, of different sizes, are presented in style frames, with small lacks (one missing the glass).

Oil painting on canvas. 1930s ca. The woman depicted wears an overcoat which in its style recalls the military clothing of the fascist period, to which the painting dates back. Even the pose of the woman seems to be military, proud and erect, with a stern gaze that understands her role. The work is presented in a gilded frame from the early 1900s.