Arturo Martini’s ‘Il Pastore’ Guides a Survey of Interwar Italian Art in Rome

The Museo d’Arte Moderna di Roma presents ‘La pittura in una stanza,’ an exhibition of Italian art from the 1920s and 1930s, curated by Maria Catalano and Federica Pirani. The show features about sixty works by twelve protagonists of the period, drawn from the museum’s collection and private collections, complemented by diary excerpts, letters, and theoretical writings by the artists. The exhibition is anchored by Arturo Martini’s 1930 sculpture ‘Il Pastore,’ which greets visitors on the first floor and also closes the show. Other highlights include Mario Sironi’s ‘La Famiglia’ (1927), works by Ferruccio Ferrazzi (including a portrait of his daughter Ninetta, 1937), and pieces by the de Chirico brothers. A room on the upper floor is dedicated to landscape painting by Carlo Carrà, Ottone Rosai, and Ardengo Soffici, the latter described as a profound and original thinker unjustly forgotten. The exhibition also includes works by Luigi Pirandello, Scipione, Massimo Campigli, and Marino Marini. The curators aim to trace a complex aesthetic itinerary through the early post-war decades, emphasizing themes of solitude, dream, and myth.