The exhibition Luigi Bartolini engraver pays tribute to one of the most complex and interesting Marche artists of the Italian twentieth century, sixty years after his passing.

Strongly desired by his daughter, Luciana Bartolini, who presides over the Luigi Bartolini Archive, the exhibition is hosted by the National Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art in Rome, from June 26 to September 1, 2024, following the recent exhibitions dedicated to him in Macerata (Civic Museums of Palazzo Buonaccorsi) and Urbino (Ducal Palace).

Luigi Bartolini (Cupramontana, 1892 - Rome, 1963) was one of the most important engravers of the last century, an inexhaustible experimenter, versatile and eclectic, he was also a painter and art critic, writer of poems and prose of remarkable literary value, including Bicycle Thieves - published by the Roman publisher Polin in 1946 - his greatest masterpiece, immortalized by Cesare Zavattini and Vittorio De Sica in the film of the same name, winner of the Oscar in 1948.

Conceived by Vittorio Sgarbi, the exhibition is curated by Alessandro Tosi - associate professor of modern art history at the University of Pisa -, promoted by the Luigi Bartolini Archive, produced and organized by AMIA - Marche Association for Artistic Initiatives, with the scientific coordination of Stefano Tonti and Arianna Trifogli, supported by the Roma Foundation and sponsored by the Marche Culture Foundation.

An artist ahead of his time, Bartolini soon became a point of reference for the young artists and intellectuals of his time. He was always driven by a deep inner torment and a fierce polemical tension towards reality, which he reflected in his works in an extremely poetic yet restless, insistent, and sometimes abrupt style.

Through the observation of his evocative etchings, the exhibition at the GNAM aims to shed light on the central point of Bartolini's reflection, namely the generative process of art, considered the only moment in which the revelation of a different and deeper truth is possible, of which the artist always sought to be the spokesperson.