Aosta – Not only snow and winter sports: Christmas in Valle d’Aosta has the colors and refined forms of Art Déco, the protagonist of a major exhibition arriving at the Forte di Bard. From 2 December 2022 to 10 April 2023, the spectacular exhibition space nestled in the mountains will be the scene of a fascinating journey through the first decades of the twentieth century, to discover one of the styles favored by contemporary designers. Paintings, sculptures, graphic works, applied art objects, wall decorations, posters, illustrations will outline the taste of an era in a vast choral fresco, focusing on the artists and personalities who have written its history.

Mario Reviglione, Zingaresca, 1920. Private collection

Set up in the Gunboat Halls and in the Cellars of Forte di Bard, Deco in Italy, the elegance of modernity will present 230 works chosen by the curator Francesco Parisi: different techniques and artistic expressions will dialogue with each other just as the spirit of Déco wanted, bringing to light the peculiar characteristics that this style of international scope assumed in the Italian panorama. There will be the glittering creations of Gio Ponti for Richard Ginori and the glass from Burano by Vittorio Zecchin, the ceramic panel painted by Galileo Chini and the portrait of Augusto Solari by Adolfo Wildt presented at the Italian Pavilion of the Exposition International des Arts Decoratifs et Industriels Modernes in Paris of 1925, the paintings by Aleardo Terzi and Umberto Brunelleschi, witnesses of a successful exchange between painting and illustration, the female portraits by Giulio Aristide Sartorio and Mario Reviglione, but also important Futurist works, which tell the link between the avant-garde and the Deco style: the preparatory studies for the great tapestry of the Futurist Genius by Giacomo Balla (which decorated the staircase of the Grand Palais at the 1925 exhibition), the furniture and tapestries by Fortunato Depero, the scenography by Enrico Prampolini.

Umberto Bottazzi, Circe, 1931. Private collection, Rome. Photo Photographic Art

In Parisi’s story, the temporal boundaries of Deco expand, embracing the twenty years between 1919 and 1939 and capturing the evolution of taste over time, while special attention is dedicated to two characters who have left their mark on the scene Italian woman of the 1920s, the gallerist and couturier Maria Monaci Gallenga and the patron and collector Riccardo Gualino.

Anselmo Bucci, Cleopatra, 1927-29 I Courtesy Matteo Maria Mapelli Modern and Contemporary Art