For the first time brought together here, 50 works produced by Mario Sironi in the last years of his life, including the celebrated urban landscapes, Apocalypses and the fundamental Periphery.
Important public and private collections (including Brera, the MART and the Vatican Museums) have supplied intense works expressing a new image of reality and a new vision of the world, radically opposed to those of Sironi’s youth and maturity. An inquiry into Sironi’s last years when he was, tormented by despair at the suicide of his eighteen-year-old daughter and bewilderment at the failure of his political and artistic convictions. A powerfully heroic and sorrowful feeling created harrowing inner visions with shadows charged with a profoundly disquieting use of black in the grandiose austerity of his ravaged landscapes and haggard, spare nudes. The catalogue also contains new critical contributions by Claudia Gian Ferrari, Elena Pontiggia, Lorella Giudici and an important essay by Jean Clair.