Starting from Saturday, April 20, on the first floor of the Museum of Graphic Design, a suggestive exhibition that offers a selection of works from the museum collections.
From the sheets of the Timpanaro collection - the founding nucleus of the Department of Drawings and Prints of the University of Pisa - the journey continues with the gifts of the artists and some works from the Argan fund and the most recent donations.
An exciting journey into the imagination of some of the authors who, over the decades, have contributed to give prestige to the Collections of the Museum of Graphics.
The Timpanaro Fund. The collection of graphic works collected by Sebastiano Timpanaro senior, distinguished scientist and historian of science, and donated in 1957 by the widow Maria Timpanaro Cardini and his son Sebastiano Timpanaro junior at the University of Pisa, is the first, prestigious core of the Cabinet Designs and Prints.
The precious nucleus of etchings by Giovanni Fattori and the corpus of nineteenth-century works are joined by drawings and engravings by many of the protagonists of an early twentieth century lived by Timpanaro with intense participation. Of note are the sheets of Renato Birolli, Corrado Cagli, Massimo Campigli, Domenico Cantatore, Felice Carena, Carlo Carrà, Pietro Consagra, Primo Conti, Giorgio De Chirico, Pericle Fazzini, Lucio Fontana, Renato Guttuso, Carlo Levi, Mino Maccari, Mario Mafai, Giacomo Manzù, Marino Marini, Ottone Rosai, Toti Scialoja, Ardengo Soffici, Arturo Tosi, Alberto Viani, Lorenzo Viani, Giuseppe Viviani and Tono Zancanaro. Among the leaves of the Timpanaro fund, which consists of a thousand pieces, the engravings by Giorgio Morandi and Luigi Bartolini, authors who signed some of the highest pages of the twentieth-century engraving, are particularly valuable.
The Argani Fund. It is a precious nucleus of over 600 sheets, including engravings and drawings, documenting the friendships and relationships of the great historian and art critic Giulio Carlo Argan (Turin 1909 - Rome 1992) with generations of artists of different backgrounds and cultures, representative of the guidelines of Italian art of the late twentieth century. The collection, donated to the University of Pisa by the daughter of the critic Paola Argan and his nephew Andrea, includes works - to mention only the most illustrious names - by Carla Accardi, Luigi Boille, Giuseppe Capogrossi, Primo Conti, Antonio Corpora, Umberto Mastroianni, Luciano Minguzzi, Bruno Munari, Concetto Pozzati, Mauro Reggiani, Guido Strazza, Giuseppe Uncini and Emilio Vedova. The collection reveals, overall, the emblematic scenario in which the debates and artistic research that found in Argan an an essential critical and theoretical point of reference took shape.
The gifts of artists. Uninterrupted was the growth of the collections of the Cabinet of Drawings and Prints, thanks to the flow of donations started in 1958 following the public appeal made by Ragghianti to Italian and foreign artists. The collection includes works by authors such as Giuseppe Capogrossi, Fabrizio Clerici, Emilio Greco, Ennio Morlotti, Bruno Munari, Achille Perilli, Arnaldo e Giò Pomodoro, Pablo Picasso, Aligi Sassu, Vittorio Tavernari, Ernesto Treccani, Emilio Vedova or Alberto Ziveri.
The core of works by the futurist architect Mario Chiattone is relevant for quantity and quality. The corpus, donated in 1964, is a precious testimony of an extraordinarily significant production in the panorama of twentieth century Italian architecture.
