10th October 2009 – 3rd January 2010
Peggy Guggenheim Collection

From Saturday 10th October Peggy Guggenheim Collection has been hosting the exhibition ‘Prendergast in Italy’, a display which, for the first time in Italy, gives the public the opportunity to admire the works by the American Post-Impressionist artist who depicted the lagoon town and Italy in its whole in a conspicuous number of artworks. It is a collection of works Prendergast made after two important trips in Italy, the first one in 1898 when he stopped also  in Padova, Firenze, Siena ,Assisi, Orvieto, Roma, Napoli and Capri, and the other in 1911: a corpus which nowadays represents one of the most representative and remarkable examples of American art.

The display deals, above all, with the group of artworks dedicated to Venice, captured by the artist in its modernity, through vivacious episodes of daily life. If Whistler’s Venetian etchings focused on the picturesque decline of the lagoon town and Sargent’s works deals with monuments and interiors, Prendergast, as an American chronicler of a modern Venice, is fascinated by the modern nature of the Serenissima, with its rich and fashionable visitors, its parades and feasts which were, on the one hand, the representation of  the historical tradition and, on the other one, the reply to international tourism, all this being depicted by means of picturesque impressionist views crowded with coloured multitudes of pedestrians going along calli, bridges and squares.
The 50 works on display, among watercolours, oil paintings and monotypes, beside photos, films, guidebook and travel advertisements, place the artist’s creations inside a new visual culture shared by the Americans at the beginning of the Twentieth century and contribute to create a strong impression of the topography, the habits and the Italian populations of ancient times. TD

Admission: h. 10.00 a.m. -6.00 p.m.; closed on Tuesdays. Every day from 3.30 the museum organises free guided tours to the exhibition. You do not need to book
Tickets: Euros 12; seniors Euros 10 (over 65 years old); students Euros 7.