Guido Pajetta Retrospective at Palazzo Reale Explores a Century of Artistic Evolution

Palazzo Reale in Milan presents a retrospective of Guido Pajetta (Monza, 1898 – Milan, 1987), spanning his entire career from a diploma painting at Brera to late works from the 1980s. The exhibition, curated with a humanist lens, traces Pajetta's restless and varied output through sections on still life, portraiture, female figures, and landscape. His early 'sironian' period (after the 1922 Portrait of a Lady) favors psychological introspection over austerity. In the 1930s, he eccentrically interprets Cubism, Chiarismo, and Surrealism. A vertical installation of self-portraits creates a dance of distorted, suffering yet joyful styles. Female nudes combine paradoxical lightness with tactility and distortion. Landscapes reveal an observational stance that is both detached and engaged, filtering tragedy through irony. Pajetta's son Giorgio quotes his father: 'I did not cross the twentieth century; the twentieth century crossed me, like a speeding train, leaving traces of suffering in the body of my painting.' The exhibition runs until a date not specified in the source.