Drawings by Jean Cocteau Gouache on Paper Framed XX Century - 3 Faces 8 Leaves

Multiple print on paper. These are 81 propaganda posters disseminated by the Christian Democrats, published in 1948 on the occasion of the general elections in Italy. The Christian Democrats and the Vatican allied with them, through their press organs and official statements, launched a powerful attack on communism. The extreme left party became the main political target of the Christian Democrat discourse. In the Catholic press, the tone went out of the political sphere and the clash began to be described in terms of a religious war, predicting apocalyptic scenarios in the event of a victory for the People's Democratic Front. The commitment against communism was also to become the main source of legitimisation of the DC in the eyes of the United States and, in a broader framework, of Italy's presence in the western bloc. Together with the creation of a real anti-communist myth, therefore, the eulogy of the American friend was also created: the two peoples - the Italian and the American - were presented as natural friends, similar, with common values and future prospects. In the posters presented here, this political line is clearly evident: many posters praise family values and the values of Christian ethics, others express a fierce anti-communism by emphasising the risks of a left-wing electoral victory, and still others extol the affinities between DC and US politics.

Glimpse of Mandello Lario 1909

Oil on canvas. Signature and location (Mandello) lower left. On the back additional signature, date and title in full. Riccardo Pellegrini, a Milanese painter, was a pupil of Domenico Morelli and was educated in the climate of romanticism. He was a landscape painter and genre painter, but he also created valuable still lifes, with bright colors and a precise and realistic drawing. His landscape production drew on the various places he visited and lived, in Italy and abroad, especially in Spain and France. In this landscape, Pellegrini offers a glimpse of the mountain that overlooks the town on the shores of Lake Como: a barren and bare mountain, albeit inhabited, with the hut on the top and a female figurine that fills the buckets at the stream of flowing water. between the rocks; the colors are those of the winter mists, divided almost transversely between the gray-blue of the upper part, with clouds laden with rain that dominate the peaks on the other side of the lake (which can be sensed, without being seen), and the green-brown of the land that occupies the lower half, with the branches of the bare trees stretched out to connect the two halves. The quiet of the mountains, the title of the work, clearly shines through and pervades the mind of the observer. The painting is presented in a contemporary frame.

Three figures

Oil painting on canvas. Signed lower left. On the back there is a stamp of the historic Galleria Palmieri in Milan (now no longer existing). The work proposes the typical characters of Franz Borghese';s satirical painting: these are figures that recall, in gestures and clothes, the subjects of 1910, portrayed with almost caricatured, sarcastic features and poses. Borghese's production in fact, after an initial period characterized by a dark and deep, almost dramatic painting, from the 1700s turns into a painting of satire and sarcasm, accentuated by a bright chromatic palette, which aims in particular at the bourgeoisie of the turn of the century. The three figures in this work, two men and a lady, are depicted sideways as they walk in single file in their elegant street clothes: the serious expressions, the distant gazes, seem to underline mutual indifference, as well as the boredom and vacuity of their life, which contrast with the bright and lively colours. The work is presented in a frame.

Mémoire écologique 1974

Acrylic on canvas. On the back present the signature, the title and the date of the work. Painter of Neapolitan origin but lived in Paris, Guido Biasi elaborated a particular figurative painting, in which he recovered images of memory or of the past to propose a revisited and ironic reflection of it. From the period 1973-75 is the series of Mémoires écologiques, based on the duplicity between psychic, i.e. subjective, memory and historical memory. The work is presented in a frame.

Nude with barrier 1970

Oil painting on canvas. On the back present signature, title and date. Also present are the stamps of the Bellini studio, interior designer. Caminati was a Genoese artist who loved to experiment, passing from social realism of denunciation (he was a partisan of the Second World War), to a painting close to pop-art, to then return to hyper-realism. He also experimented with different techniques and materials, and was an excellent ceramist. This work belongs to his pop period of the 1970s, a period in which the artist also revisited some masterpieces of art history: a naked female body lying on a sheet, probably part of a famous work of art , is semi-hidden under a red barrier, which deprives the figure of any identity. The work has a scratch and a slight tear in the centre, in need of restoration.

'Si fanno in 4 per Paolo' 2010

Thin aluminum laminate sprayed with acrylic colors. On the back there is the self-certification form of the work, with the signature and all the data (title, size, technique, date and dedication). The title is also expressed on the reverse, by punching in the center. "Eugenio Sgaravatti was born in Rome. He attended schools in Italy, Switzerland, Holland and England. The passion for traveling led him to a hundred different countries, deepening his humanistic knowledge. The large amount of messages received in his travels stimulate his vocation and push the artist to devote himself exclusively to painting. He works in his studio in the capital at Villa Iris in Via Appia Antica 107. He paints abstract compositions and landscapes with some figurative jolts. His works contain elements of repetitiveness, which reflect the obsessive and serial character of contemporary life. He paints in oils but also experiments with acrylic paints, polyurethane resins and powder pigments. Given his versatility, the supports vary: canvas, cardboard, wood and metal laminates. " (biography taken from the artist's website). Work presented in frame.

Clerics with Fishes

Oil on the table. Signed lower right. It is the work of the Rapallo artist Pietro Ardito, who established himself as a cartoonist and caricaturist, painter and designer. Also in his pictorial works the matrix is ​​the caricature one: prelates and clerics often find themselves as subjects, as in this scene in which Ardito proposes a nice procession of clerics following a bishop....returning from a day of fishing, with fish trophies clearly visible. In frame.

House of Mary in Guerri 1957

Oil on hardboard. Signed and dated lower right. On the back the title. Caminati was a Genoese artist who loved to experiment, passing from social realism of denunciation (he was a partisan of the Second World War), to a painting close to pop-art, to then return to hyper-realism. This work belongs to the period of social realism, which lasted throughout the fifties, in which Caminati portrayed places and characters of everyday life, such as this landscape view of the Casa Guerri hamlet in the municipality of Pievepelago, in the province of Modena, where the protagonist is a specific house, belonging to a woman called Mary, evidently known to the painter. The work is presented in a frame

We created Atypical Systems 1963/74

Serigraphs and photos. The work consists of three silk-screened cartoons (in cardboard box) with the text in English (original title "We have created atypical systems") and six photos portraying the artist, individually framed. On the back of the three serigraphs in English, numbered in sequence, there are the edition number 13/15, the date 1974 and the artist's signature; they also accompany three unsigned serigraphs with the text in Italian. Cioni Carpi, Milanese artist, engaged in conceptual and minimalist art, produced works in which imagination, sensitivity, expressive flair were fundamental. His creativity was also expressed in photography, installations, video, drawing, writing, the artist's book, as well as painting. The dimensions indicated are those of the single frame.

Untitled 1969

Ink on paper. Signed and dated lower right. Accompanied by authentication on photo for the Marconi Gallery in Milan, and stamp of the JAPF Archive. with N. 112. From the beginning, Gianfranco Pardi's artistic research has been based on space and constructive planning that gives life to works of great formal rigor, characterized by the integration of drawing, painting and sculpture in a spatial dimension of breath architectural. Starting from rigorous planning, the artist reveals the dynamics and relationships of form and matter: imaginary architectural interiors, rigidly geometric or biomorphic sculptures, marriages of architectural constructions and natural environments. The study is presented in a frame.

Study for Sculpture 1969

Ink on paper. Signed and dated lower right. Accompanied by authentication on photo for the Marconi Gallery in Milan, and stamp of the JAPF Archive. with N. 114. From the outset, Gianfranco Pardi's artistic research has been based on space and constructive planning that gives life to works of great formal rigor, characterized by the integration of drawing, painting and sculpture in a spatial dimension of breath architectural. Starting from rigorous planning, the artist reveals the dynamics and relationships of form and matter: imaginary architectural interiors, rigidly geometric or biomorphic sculptures, marriages of architectural constructions and natural environments. The study is presented in a frame.