Baselitz – AVANTI!, on show until September 13, is a large-scale exhibition curated by Sergio Risaliti and created in collaboration with the artist’s studio, showcasing works by Georg Baselitz with a particular focus on the German artist’s lesser-known practice of printmaking. Over 170 works spanning 60 years are on show across the museum’s three floors, including prints, paintings and sculptures, detailing the complexity and radical nature of his research and diverse themes.
Visitors learn about the artist’s profound connection to Florence, having stayed here for about six months in 1965 after winning the Villa Romana grant. This time brought him into contact with the anti-classical and expressionist art of the Italian 16th century, particularly Rosso Fiorentino, Domenico Beccafumi and Jacopo da Pontormo. He subsequently returned to Florence several times between 1976 and 1981, culminating in a solo exhibition in 1988 at the Sala d’Arme in Palazzo Vecchio.
On the occasion of the exhibition, Museo Novecento and Fondazione MUS.E, in collaboration with the Fondazione Il Bisonte, are offering a series of guided tours and printmaking workshops held on select weekends until June.
Simultaneously, the former convent hosts Ottone Rosai – Poeta Innanzitutto (Poet First and Foremost), a display bringing together the artist’s works in the Alberto Della Ragione Collection and the Rosai Bequest for the first time, on show until October 4. The oeuvre of Ottone Rosai (Florence, 1895 – Ivrea, 1957) is explored through the lens of his relationship with his city and the intellectuals of his time, complemented with a selection of documents from the Gabinetto Scientifico Letterario G.P. Vieusseux, Archivio Contemporaneo Alessandro Bonsanti, as well as linking to the figure of Georg Baselitz, who was an admirer of Rosai.
