Tazartes Collection: Ibrahim Kodra's Post-Cubist Turn and Picasso's Antibes Drawing

Key facts

• Ibrahim Kodra's 'Nascita d'Aurora' (1959) is in the Tazartes Collection, acquired after the 1965 'Arte e Resistenza in Europa' exhibition in Turin.
• The exhibition 'Arte e Resistenza in Europa' was held at the Galleria civica d’arte moderna in Turin from June 8 to July 18, 1965, and previously at the Museo Civico in Bologna from April 26 to May 30.
• The exhibition featured over 500 works by major European artists, including Picasso and Kodra, with the Italian section curated by Raffaele De Grada.
• Kodra's 'Paesaggio' (1965), also in the collection, shows his shift from cubist geometry to softer, luminous effects.
• Kodra was born in Ishëm, Albania, and studied at the Accademia di Brera in Milan from 1938 with a scholarship from the Queen of Albania.
• His teachers included Carlo Carrà, Achille Funi, and Aldo Carpi; he won the Premio Hayez.
• Kodra participated in the Resistance and in 1945 signed a manifesto supporting Aldo Carpi's appointment as director of the Brera Academy.
• Kodra met poet Paul Éluard in the 1940s and Picasso in Rome in 1949.
• The Tazartes Collection also includes a Picasso drawing from 1946, 'Centaur, Nessus and Deianira,' part of the 'Mes dessins d’Antibes' album published in 1958.
• The model in the Picasso drawing is Françoise Gilot, who died in 2023.
• Kodra's works are in the Vatican Museums and the Italian Chamber of Deputies.