On the occasion of the Festivalfilosofia 2019 dedicated to the theme "person", the Civic Museums of Modena and the Koelliker Collection of Milan are promoting the exhibition "Oscar Sorgato. Tender is light. A protagonist of Chiarimo".

The exhibition, curated by Stefano Sbarbaro and Cristina Stefani, reconstructs and brings to the attention of the public the human and artistic story of the painter of Modenese origins, Oscar Sorgato (Modena, 1902 - Milan, 1941) who carried out his short career almost entirely in the fervent artistic climate of Milan in the 1930s. The artist witnesses that delicate passage that leads to the overcoming of the heavy plastic canons of the Italian twentieth century in favor of a renewed pictorial approach, characterized by a soft and loose brushstroke of neo-impressionist matrix that was organized in the Chiarism movement around the figure of the critic Edoardo Persico.

Sorgato's production focuses on two fundamental themes, landscape painting and portraits, giving us for the second a social cross-section of the complex period of the Twenties and framing the aspirations, frailties and disturbances of the Milanese bourgeoisie of the time, with particular attention towards the female condition which favors the connection with the “person” theme addressed by Festivafilosofia .

An atmosphere that will also be evoked in the exhibition by the sound stories composed for the occasion by the writers Andrea Vitali and Roberto Barbolini who, inspired by some portraits, will project some of the figures painted by Sorgato into the dimension of literary fiction, thus awakening them from their immobility, to become characters and interpreters of their stories.

The exhibition itinerary, introduced by a video on the figure of the artist, unfolds along the main stages that mark the stylistic evolution of his language, from belonging to a family of important photographic entrepreneurs, to the Modenese beginnings within the Institute of Art "A. Venturi", to the experiences carried out in Rome and Pavia, up to the artist's passage to Milan marked by growing acclaim from the public and critics recorded on the occasion of important exhibitions in Padua (1931), to the Lombard Syndicate of Milan (1932, 1933, 1935), at the Permanente in Milan (1942, posthumous exhibition) at the Quadriennale in Rome (1931, 1935, 1939) and at the Venice Biennale (1936, 1940).

The exhibition catalog, published by Silvana Editoriale, will contain a presentation by Elena Pontiggia, the critical essays by the curators and the stories inspired by some works by Oscar Sorgato signed by the writers Andrea Vitali and Roberto Barbolini