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A sea of fresh colour
closed

A sea of fresh colour

From 6 October to 14 January 2024

GNU - National Gallery of Umbria

GNU - National Gallery of Umbria

Corso Vannucci, 19, Perugia

Open, closing soon closes at 19:30

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The exhibition, entitled A sea all fresh with colour. Sandro Penna and the figurative arts, presents 150 works by authors such as Pablo Picasso, Jean Cocteau, Filippo De Pisis, Mario Mafai, Tano Festa, Mario Schifano, Franco Angeli and others. Already in his Roman home, they shed a completely new light on the relationships with the art world of one of the most sensitive and profound poets of the entire Italian twentieth century.

After the great exhibition dedicated to Perugino 500 years after his death, Perugia celebrates another important fellow citizen: the poet Sandro Penna (1906-1977), one of the most sensitive and profound voices of the twentieth century, not only Italian, as demonstrated by the numerous and continuous translations of his verses.


The National Gallery of Umbria in Perugia hosts the exhibition A sea all fresh with color from 6 October 2023 to 14 January 2024. Sandro Penna and the figurative arts, which investigates Penna's relationship with the world of art, focusing on the tastes and trends widespread on the cultural scene between the 1940s and the 1970s, of which the poet was an absolute protagonist, like Pier Paolo Pasolini, Alberto Moravia and Elsa Morante, his friends and colleagues.

The exhibition, curated by Roberto Deidier, Tommaso Mozzati and Carla Scagliosi, presents 150 works by authors such as Pablo Picasso, Jean Cocteau, Alexander Calder, Leoncillo and others, including the artists with whom Sandro Penna established a close friendship and a daily attendance: from Filippo De Pisis to Mario Mafai, from Tano Festa to Mario Schifano, and Franco Angeli, or from the Roman school to the young people of Piazza del Popolo.


The exhibition, for the first time, will offer the visitor the opportunity to admire a vast nucleus, recently identified, of works coming from the poet's house, in via Mole de' Fiorentini in Rome where, in addition to meeting painters, sculptors, gallery owners and men of letters, Penna carried out his activity as an art dealer.

The journey is completed with a careful selection of autographs, diaries and letters, essential, together with the first editions and audiovisual materials, to shed light on the writer's passions, through the cultured dialogue between image and written word.

Precisely this dialogue, moreover, suggested to critical literature a parallel between his literary work and his profession as a painter, commenting on the intimate, coded harmony woven between his verses and contemporary plastic expressions.

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Corso Vannucci, 19, Perugia, Italy

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Opening hours

opens - closes last entry
monday 12:00 - 19:30
tuesday 08:30 - 19:30
wednesday 08:30 - 19:30
thursday 08:30 - 19:30
friday 08:30 - 19:30
saturday 08:30 - 19:30
sunday 08:30 - 19:30


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at GNU - National Gallery of Umbria

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in Perugia