EXHIBITION: Sentimental Travelers Watercolor Snapshots (from the last century)

From May 30-June 30, 2023, enjoy a unique exhibition curated by Pier-Antonio Gottardo

Whether setting out towards a still unknown and distant horizon or simply wandering through nearby or far-off surroundings, whether measured in a few brief pauses or in the long wait for the return home, travelling reveals itself in countless forms and colours. And just as time occasionally seems to linger within the journey, so the traveller's ordinary perception suddenly opens into a more sentimental awareness. The watercolours echo the swiftness with which the traveller's gaze was captured—by an entire landscape or by a single detail—rendering with immediacy now only a fragment, now the whole scene.

Here, washes of colour spread across contrasting fields or merge as they complete one another; there, concise pen lines lightly sketched before the application of watercolour, or fully realised coloured forms complete in themselves. At times these are finished miniature paintings requiring nothing more than an appropriate frame; at others they are travel notes preserved in sketchbooks or studies destined to become new paintings. In every case they remain vivid records of places, moments, and emotions now past. Some of the painted snapshots presented in this exhibition have found a second life elsewhere: some within the home of the artist who created them over the years, others alongside the evocative objets trouvés collected during more recent journeys.

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Works by Federigo Angeli, Lola Costa, Kit Amstruther Thompson, Vernon Lee, Thomas Watt Cafe, and others. Special thanks to Giuliano Angeli for his invaluable collaboration.