First Museum Retrospective of Anna Marongiu at MAN Nuoro

The MAN Museum in Nuoro presents the first museum retrospective of Anna Marongiu (Cagliari 1907 – Ostia 1941), curated by Luigi Fassi, open until March 1, 2020. The exhibition is part of a broader research project on 20th-century Sardinian and Italian art. It focuses on three cycles of illustrations created by Marongiu between 1926 and 1930, dedicated to literary masterpieces: William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream (1930), Alessandro Manzoni's The Betrothed (1926), and Charles Dickens' The Pickwick Papers (1929). The latter, comprising 262 ink and watercolor plates on loan from the Charles Dickens Museum in London, is the core of the show and is exhibited in a museum for the first time in 90 years. Luigi Fassi writes in the catalog that Marongiu's narrative drawing interprets Western literary tradition with psychological insight, alternating between ironic and dramatic tones. The exhibition is enriched by a short film directed by Gemma Lynch, produced by MAN and Film Commission Sardegna in collaboration with the Charles Dickens Museum.