At Villa Bardini a great exhibition on Galileo Chini

From December 7, 2021 to April 25, 2022, an exhibition dedicated to the greatest Italian artist of Art Nouveau taste.

From December 7, 2021 to April 25, 2022, Villa Bardini in Florence will host the major exhibition Galileo Chini and European Symbolism, curated by Fabio Benzi and promoted by Fondazione CR Firenze and Fondazione Parchi Monumentali Bardini e Peyron.

Il tifone, 1911

The exhibition dedicated to the greatest Italian exponent of Art Nouveau, as well as one of the major European artists of Art Nouveau, marks the reopening of the interior spaces of the villa that were closed due to the pandemic. More than 200 pieces will be exhibited, including paintings, drawings, illustrations and ceramics, in a continuous succession of links and parallels between the artist and the international art that inspired him.

There will be works of the artistic environment between French and Central European symbolism, between Pre-Raphaelism and Secessionism, which sees intertwine the path of Chini with that of artists such as Auguste Rodin, Gustav Klimt, Max Klinger, Ferdinand Hodler, William de Morgan, Aubrey Beardsley, Gaetano Previati, Giovanni Segantini, Odilon Redon, Felix Vallotton, Pierre Bonnard and many others.

Icaro, 1907

The exhibition examines the first 20 years of Chini's artistic life, from the beginning to the First World War, marked by a passionate adhesion to the climate of international Symbolism. Chini embodied an ideal of modernity in the Europe of that period and participated with great success in the major international exhibitions (Turin, Paris, Munich, Brussels, St. Petersburg, St. Louis). The artist was also one of the main promoters of the breaking down of barriers between major and minor arts: he was in fact an extraordinary ceramist whose works, marked by the modernist taste of Art Nouveau, can be counted among the most significant and extraordinary of that taste.  

Galileo Chini per Arte della Ceramica Fontebuoni, Vaso paesaggio lacustre in porpora, 1904

"This exhibition marks the restart of Villa Bardini as a center dedicated to art and culture in Florence - say Luigi Salvadori, President of Fondazione CR Firenze and Jacopo Speranza, President of Fondazione Parchi Monumentali Bardini e Peyron - After months of closure we are pleased that the exhibition halls of the villa come back to life with an exhibition dedicated to a great Florentine artist, who has been able to stand out in the international scene drawing and at the same time contaminating the artistic era in which he established himself".