Museo Cantonale d'Arte Lugano - A History of Italian Art

"Painting is poetry which is seen and not heard, and poetry is a painting which is heard but not seen."
Leonardo da Vinci

This exhibition recounts the story of the Christian Stein Collection by way of about one hundred masterpieces of Italian art that date to the post-war period and collected by Mrs. Christian Stein, an outstanding exponent of the European tradition of gallery owners-cum-collectors. On show, there are about a hundred works selected among the many that were rarely exhibited or later actually ceded to the best world museums. A hundred works evoking and retracing the history of the Stein Collection, a legendary narration of an unrepeatable moment of European cultural history. The exhibition presents Manzoni's and Lo Savio's monochromes, Melotti's sculptures, Fontana's cuts, one sculpture of Colla, Uncini's concretes, "manifestos" of a new radicalism that narrate the 50s and 60s in an Italy imbued with classical history and, at the same time, plunged into the post-war mood and economic boom.

Where: Museo Cantonale d'arte della città di Lugano, Via Canova 10, 6900 Lugano
When: March 12th to May 22nd, 2011
Time:  Tuesday 14:00 -17:00 / Wednesday through Sunday 10:00 -17.00
Closed on Mondays
Admission: Permanent Collection: CHF 7.-, Exhibitions CHF 10.-