For the first time Palazzo Reale celebrates the talent of Giuseppe De Nittis in a monographic exhibition featuring around 90 paintings, both oils and pastels, coming from the main public and private collections, Italian and foreign, including the Musée d'Orsay and the Petit Palais of Paris, the Musée des Beaux-Arts of Reims and that of Dunkerke, the Uffizi of Florence – to name a few -, in addition to the extraordinary nucleus preserved at the GAM in Milan and a selection from the Pinacoteca of Barletta, named after the painter, which preserves an exceptional number of works following the bequest of the widow, Léontine De Nittis.

The consecration of Giuseppe de Nittis as one of the great protagonists of nineteenth-century-European painting occurred thanks to the exhibition success he enjoyed after his passing, starting from the magnificent retrospective dedicated to him in 1914 at the 11. Venice Biennale. Other fundamental stages were the exhibition Giuseppe De Nittis. La modernité élégante set up in Paris at the Petit Palais in 2010-2011, and in 2013 the fundamental monographic dedicated to him in Padua at Palazzo Zabarella.

DE NITTIS. Painter of modern life aims to enhance the international stature of a painter who was, together with Boldini, the greatest of the Italians in Paris, where he managed to stand in comparison with Manet, Degas and the Impressionists. With the latter, the young Peppino was able to share, despite the diversity of pictorial language, the aspiration to revolutionize the very idea of ​​painting, once and for all dismantling the hierarchy of genres to achieve that autonomy of art which has been the greatest aspiration of modernity.

The French painters and De Nittis, who always felt profoundly Parisian by adoption, have addressed the same themes, including the landscape, the portrait and the representation of modern life that De Nittis was able to capture along the streets of the two metropolises he frequented, at the time great European art capitals: Paris and London. He was able to represent, together with the two metropolises, in an extraordinary en plein air technique, the privileged places of the mythology of modernity, which will be placed at the center of an exhibition itinerary that develops over a period of twenty years, from 1864 to 1884, reconstructing an extraordinary pictorial adventure, which ended prematurely with the artist’s death at just 38 years of age.

The results he achieved are due to his innate genius, his ability to compare himself with the major artists of his time, his intellectual curiosity and openness to other languages. He is also among the artists of the time who best knew how to measure himself with Japanese painting that had become fashionable at the time.

The exhibition also sees the collaboration of METS Percorsi d'Arte, which has contributed to the project by incorporating a significant selection of artworks from private collections. Among these are the Orange-Colored Kimono, Piccadilly, and the famous Westminster.

All this will be underlined by the exhibition and the rich catalogue by Silvana Editoriale.

An exhibition by the Municipality of Milan - Culture Area | Palazzo Reale | CMS.Cultura

Curated by Fernando Mazzocca and Paola Zatti