Antonio Donghi's Magic Realism Exhibition at Palazzo Merulana

A comprehensive exhibition at Fondazione Cerasi, Palazzo Merulana in Rome, curated by Francesca Bottari, showcases 34 works by Antonio Donghi (1897–1963), a refined painter of magic realism. The show traces Donghi's stylistic shift around 1922 from conventional Impressionist-influenced landscapes to a distinctive, modern classicism exemplified by 'Le lavandaie.' It includes works from 1923 to the post-war period: crystalline Roman views, portraits of gentlemen and bourgeois women, genre scenes, still lifes, and marginal figures like acrobats. The exhibition highlights Donghi's influences—Giotto, Raphael, Italian and Dutch Seicento masters, as well as contemporaries Ubaldo Oppi, Felice Carena, Felice Casorati, Ugo Ojetti, Bragaglia, and Massimo Bontempelli (who coined the term 'magic realism' in the 1920s). Donghi participated in the 1923 Biennale Romana and the 1935 Quadriennale. From 1939, he taught painting techniques at the Istituto Centrale del Restauro. The show also explores the cultural milieu of Rome: Caffè Aragno, the Bragaglia brothers' gallery and 'Grotte' on Via degli Avignonesi, and his attraction to silent cinema, street festivals, and the comic theater of Petrolini and Campanile. The catalog provides comparisons clarifying his non-citational style. The exhibition runs at Palazzo Merulana.