Felice Carena, two exhibitions - Palazzo Medici Riccardi and Academy of Fine Arts, Florence

What you will find

EVENT NAME: Felice Carena, two exhibitions to remember the artist 100 years after his arrival in Florence

EVENT PLACE: Palazzo Medici Riccardi and Academy of Fine Arts

EVENT DATE: from 17 October 2024 to 16 February 2025

EVENT PRICE: Full price of the museums or included with the Firenzecard

EVENT DESCRIPTION:

On 17 October 2024 at Palazzo Medici Riccardi and at the Academy of Fine Arts in Florence two distinct exhibitions will open to the public but closely linked by the artist to whom they are both dedicated: Felice Carena, prolific painter and protagonist of twentieth-century art who 100 years ago he settled in Florence, a city in which he remained for over 20 years, first as a teacher and then also as president (from 1933) of the Academy of Fine Arts.

The exhibition at Palazzo Medici Riccardi, Felice Carena. Living in painting, born from an idea by Magda Grifò, the artist's great-granddaughter, with the coordination of Valentina Zucchi, scientific director of the building, is promoted by the Metropolitan City of Florence, created by MUS.E. Curated by Luigi Cavallo and Elena Pontiggia, it will be open to the public from 17 October 2024 to 16 February 2025. The exhibition follows Carena's creative story by delving into the years he lived in Florence, from 1924 - the moment in which he was called to teach at the Academy - to 1945, when he moved to Venice, until the end of his life in 1966 and offers visitors an important group of works, including numerous unpublished works owned by the family as well as works from important public and private institutions such as the Bank of Italy, the Giorgio Cini Foundation of Venice, the Uffizi Galleries, the National Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art in Rome, the Museo del Novecento in Milan and the Civic Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art of Anticoli Corrado.

Felice Carena. Painter and Master at the Academy of Fine Arts in Florence, from 17 October to 21 November 2024 in the Ghiberti Room of the Academy, is curated by Susanna Ragionieri and Rossella Campana. The centerpiece of the exhibition is the large canvas The School, coming from the collections of Monte dei Paschi di Siena, painted by Carena in 1928 in the spaces of the Academy, in which the artist represents himself at work surrounded by his students. 42 works on display, some of which have never been exhibited before, coming from private collections, museums, public and private bodies: the Uffizi Galleries, the Revoltella Museum of Trieste, the Historical Archive of the Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, the Primo Conti Foundation , the Monte dei Paschi di Siena. Alongside Carena's works - which also testify to his collaborative activity with the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino and with the "Solaria" magazine environment - some works by contemporary artists including Giuseppe Graziosi, Carlo Rivalta, Guido Peyron will also be exhibited and a selection of drawings from the collection that Carena himself began at the Academy in 1936. Among the authors of the drawings on display are Renato Guttuso, Felice Casorati, Giorgio de Chirico, Giorgio Morandi, Carlo Carrà, Marino Marini.

Ideally uniting the two exhibitions is the painting "The School" which, at the end of the exhibition at the Academy, will be moved to Palazzo Medici Riccardi where it will remain until the end of the exhibition on 16 February 2025, continuing to symbolically refer to important role - as artist and educator - played by Carena in the city for twenty years.

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