From 23 March to 30 June, in the splendid setting of Villa Contarini in Piazzola sul Brenta (PD) will be on display the exhibition "Virgilio Guidi. The great works ", by Michele Beraldo and Dino Marangon. The exhibition aims to promote and revive the large works of one of the greatest Italian masters of the twentieth century, starting from its production close of World War II until we reach the last works of the eighties. Will be exhibited about fifty works from important private collections and public institutions. The fame and talent undisputed Virgilio Guidi, basic key figure in art, culture and poetry of the last century, have been witnessed and recognized by the presence of his works in major museums such as the Hermitage in St. Petersburg, Vatican Museums, the National Gallery of Modern Art in Rome, as well as the countless Venice Biennale in which he took part in the twentieth century, and that marked the various periods and moments of his career, vibrant and prolific until the his death.

Very much aware of the main artistic movements of the twentieth century Guidi will always be a deeply personal way, while maintaining its stylistic independence with respect to both the great twentieth-century Italian and European players in the so-called Magic Realism. Following respond in a personal way with innovative appeals Lucio Fontana, promoter of the Spatialist Movement, then compare with the immediacy sign-expressive poetics informal and abstract expressionism. Of great importance and originality will be also in the second half of the sixties, his research focused on a novel representation of feminine beauty, in response to widespread mass-typical iconography of Pop Art design and interpretation of light and space will always have a central role in the evolution of his formal research, constantly open to experimentation.

Still relatively little known are his vast, intense paintings of the first seventies and eighties, testifying with the series of large trees an extraordinary ecological awareness, while restless Figures and the cycle of the Man and the Sky Guidi come for a complete summary of its extraordinary human and religious bodies, which, together with the last Rouault and Matisse, places him among the greatest painters of Christianity, in these times.

The exhibition is sponsored and supported by the Veneto Region, with the support of Euromobil Group, and hosted in the splendid rooms of Villa Contarini, old villa owned by the Region of Veneto, which already in 1975 had hosted an exhibition dedicated to Virgilio Guidi, reconfirming this time as the ideal venue for hosting large "canvases" of the artist.

The exhibition catalog, published by Allemandi & C., consisting of about 140 pages, with numerous color illustrations, will include essays by Dino Marangon and Michele Beraldo. The bio-bibliographical equipment will be edited by Franca Bizzotto.

Villa Contarini
Regione del Veneto
Via Luigi Camerini, 1
Piazzola sul Brenta (PD) 35016 Italy
Ph. +39 049 8778272-73
Ph. +39 049 5590347
villacontarini@regione.veneto.it
www.villacontarini.eu

Opening hours
Every day except Wednesday
From 9.00am until 6.30pm
The entrance to the exhibition is free