LEA COLLIVA: An Artist on the Pathway of the Gods exhibition brings the Bolognese early-twentieth-century artist to Il Palmerino Cultural Association. This small-scale but significant show sheds light on an explosive painter producing what the Fascists called ‘degenerative’ art at a time when ‘rebel’ Italians courted the Informal movement. Art historian Beatrice Buscaroli writes, “Lea Colliva thunders through figures, flowers and landscapes, meandering between Rembrandt and Soutine in her restless expressionist quest.”

 

The exhibition winds its way through 45 years of artistic movements in a compelling compendium that ranges from traditionalist landscapes of the turn of the century to liberty-style portraits and works influenced by the informal movement and abstractionism. Present in several editions of the Venice Biennale, Lea Colliva also exhibited at Palazzo Vecchio and the Strozzina.

 

This 2019 show was a long-awaited ‘welcome back’ to Florence for an artist that the critic Carlo Ludovico Ragghianti described as one who favors “dramatic and emotional moments and visions that infuse her subjects with dynamic warmth”. The show’s centerpiece, an early self-portrait, was restored during the ‘Women who drew’ project to recover art-by-women on paper, co-organised with Advancing Women Artists and spearheaded by Beatrice Cuniberti at the Atelier degli Artigianelli. 

​

 

​