I. Kodra Mixed Technique on Canvas Italy XX Century

Valtellina, 2000

Mixed media on canvas. On the reverse there is signature, title, date and dedication to the art critic Rossana Bossaglia. The work belongs to the pictorial phase of the painter Massimo Soldati, which evolved after 1985 and characterized by the search for new expressive techniques and the use of different materials, moving from formal figurative to informal figurative and conceptual abstract. The work is presented in a frame.

Untitled 1958

Oil on canvas. Signed and dated lower right. The work of strong emotional impact proposes an almost monochromatic purple background, in which a few black and white strokes are inserted to define a silhouette curled up on the left, perhaps a human form, collected and closed in on itself. Born in 1934 in Viareggio, where he still lives, the painter and sculptor Mario Francesconi is considered one of the few survivors of Dadaism, which since the end of the 1950s has gone through the seasons of Italian and European art in a distinctly personal search for forms and techniques. Starting from his first solo show in 1959 he develops an artistic path that goes through different phases, often attributable to a passion for poor and recycled materials. His artistic activity moves between the areas of painting, sculpture, collage and installation and borders on the adjacent areas of poetry and literature, also thanks to friendships and professional relationships with some of the most significant figures of the intellectual world. Italian of the second half of the last century, from Emilio Villa to Cesare Garboli, from Leonardo Sciascia to Mario Luzi, from Cesare Zavattini to Pier Paolo Pasolini, from Alfonso Gatto to Sandro Penna to Venturino Venturi. The work is presented in a frame.

Print on paper. Rare anti-racist poster which, as indicated below, was published as a supplement to the magazine "MAI" of June '68, in the series "I manifesti di MAI di Giò" (Giorgio Tavaglione). It is a manifesto of the beat movements that spread in Italy in the years 1967-1968: thanks to the use of the mimeograph, which allowed the printing of numerous flyers, posters, poetic anthologies, small plaquettes and especially magazines, the young beatniks they created an alternative information channel that represented the primary vehicle for disseminating the principles that animated the beat movement, as opposed to the official cultural and communication circuits. Within the magazines, and in general in the various beat activities, poetic writing assumed an essential role as an integral part of the practice of dissent, since it represented one of the main forms of expression and affirmation of a different ideal of life, as well as of a different idea of collectivity. Giorgio Tavaglione was one of the best-known artistic exponents of the beat movement: as a complete self-taught Giò he designed the posters, flyers and covers of the first Italian underground magazines of the 1960s; disappeared for years after a trip to India, he subsequently reappeared as a draftsman of tarot cards and talismans in the creation of which he transferred his excellent graphic quality, his typical meticulous and imaginative, esoteric and visionary style. Work in frame.

Pair of Ink Drawings

Ink on paper. One of the two is signed on the lower right. The works of the Russian artist Vyacheslav Sawich Mikhailov are exhibited in prestigious museums such as the Tretyakov Gallery or the Museum of Modern Art in Moscow, the National Museum of Russian Art, the Museum of Nonconformist Art in St. Petersburg. Considered an expressionist author, he creates scenes of intense drama with different techniques. The design proposed here is part of a series of scenes full of dramatically intertwined figures in contortions of the body, with allegorical elements and patches of often red color, evoking blood. In frame.

Glimpse of the Cloister of the Dome of Monreale

Mixed technique, with canvas, wooden panels, metal threads, small beads, etc. At the bottom center is the artist's name, unidentified. It is a three-dimensional and perspective reconstruction of the cloister of the Monreale Cathedral, with the fountain in the foreground. The work is presented in a display case with a gilded frame from the early 1900s.

Composition on 4 Panels, 1978

Mixed media on canvas applied to wooden panels, showing a sequence. On the lower right the artist's initials GB and the numbering of the panels; on the verso of each panel is the signature in full, with the date and the following sequential titles: 'By Bosch', 'Declination of an Owl', 'Transcription' and 'Disappearance for Coquetry'. Gabriella Benedini has defined her as an artist as 'a nomad in search of the profound meaning of things'. Although attracted and interested first by abstract-informal painting, then by Existential Realism and then by the New Figuration, Gabriella Benedini proceeds on a strictly personal quest that cannot be assimilated into any specific current. The entire 1970s were mainly marked by pictorial works that reflected literary cues filtered through her need for growth and confrontation. Then, through her passion for Alchemy, Benedini began to transform anything that came her way into works of art; shells, pages of old books, bottles, everything is combined into a harmonious whole that recalls spaces. Her works therefore become mainly three-dimensional, either to hang on the wall, or they are sculptures, even large ones. The four panels are presented here in a single frame.

City Glimpse

Oil on wood. Signed on the back. Riccardo Viriglio, a landscape painter from Pavia, portrayed urban views mainly of his city and landscape views especially of Lombardy. Here too there is a view of a city square with a portico. In a stylish frame.

The path of San Rocco (Camogli)

Oil on cardboard. Signed lower left. On the back this title in pencil. An extremely original landscape painter who experimented with oil painting but also with watercolors and engraving, Raul Viviani came very close to pointillist painting, however developing his own personal technique, characterized by very thin filaments of color in the shape of thin commas, which define the structures of his landscapes. With his transfer to Liguria, which made the landscape of that region the protagonist of his works, his technique changed, moving away from the original divisionism to open up to a broad and summary brushstroke, which finally resulted in the last period in a production of nature death with violent and contrasting colors. This landscape can also be placed in the Ligurian period, which offers a glimpse of a well-known Ligurian locality, still rendered in the characteristic style of Viviani, made of brushstrokes in thin filaments, superimposed on spots of lively color, in the chromatic ranges of the colors of nature. In frame.

Pulcinella's Games

Oil (mixed) on canvas. Signed and dated lower right. Additional signature, title, technique and declaration of authenticity on the back. Mario Cortiello, a Neapolitan painter, pupil of Gennaro Villani and later friend and collaborator of Umberto Lilloni, participated in the renewal of Neapolitan painting with his own personal style, without straying from tradition. Endowed with fertile invention and remarkable representational ability, he left behind a rich and varied production. Recurring in his production are landscape or urban views, populated by numerous figures, often, in the Neapolitan setting, by Punchinello, depicted floating on dreamlike backgrounds, so much so that he is defined as the Neapolitan Chagall.

The Olona

Oil on hardboard. Signed lower right. Further signature and title on the back. Giovanni Balansino, Piedmontese by origin but Lombard by adoption, chose to depict his love for both lands with his painting made of broad and nervous brushstrokes, dedicating a large part of his production to them. In the proposed painting, Balansino presents a glimpse of the Olona river, a watercourse entirely in Lombardy, as it flows through the villages of the Lombard plain. The work is presented in a frame.

Paris, 1974

Oil painting on canvas. Signed and dated lower right. Further signature, title and handwritten declaration of authenticity on the back. Mario Cortiello, a Neapolitan painter who was a pupil of Gennaro Villani and later a friend and collaborator of Umberto Lilloni, participated with his own personal style in the renewal of Neapolitan painting, without departing from tradition. Endowed with fertile invention and remarkable representative capacity, he left behind a rich and varied production. Landscape or urban views are recurring in his production, populated by numerous figures, often, in the Neapolitan setting, by Pulcinella, depicted floating on dreamlike backgrounds, so much so that he is defined as the Neapolitan Chagall. In this painting, however, we have a lively glimpse of a Parisian street, animated by numerous figures who, in pastel colors and quick strokes, have an almost naive soul. the painting is presented in a frame.

Ligurian Beach

Oil on canvas. Signed lower left. It is a glimpse of the Ligurian Riviera, near a cove, surmounted by houses close to the coast. Berto Ferrari, born and always lived in Liguria, was a skilled and sensitive marine and landscape painter of the post-impressionist tradition, who painted the beauties of the Ligurian Riviera and numerous views of the Apennine hinterland. The painting has drops of color and traces of restoration. It is in a coeval frame.