Old Masters – Contemporary – Design
Thursday 20 March 2025 opens with Art Installations. Old Masters – Contemporary – Design, the new SPAZIO OPIS – Art Gallery, born from the collaboration between Maria Teresa Panatta and Laura Griesi with Floriana Viesti.
Located in the heart of Rome, SPAZIO OPIS is a new large space dedicated to Art and Design, where the ancient meets and confronts the contemporary, declined in its many aspects.
On display a selection of works starting from the Old Masters, including a Still Life of Fruit with Parrot by Abraham Brueghel, an oil on canvas depicting Jazabel devoured by dogs by Luca Giordano from around 1680 and a gold-ground tempera on wood with a Coronation of the Virgin dating back to the 15th century made by the Spanish painter Domingo Ram.
The twentieth century is well represented with Afro Basaldella, present with a 1963 collage Natura Morta, Roberto Almagno with two installations, Giacinto Cerone with Aquila, a red ceramic sculpture from the 1990s and Pietro Consagra with two sculptures from the 1960s, Colloquio Segreto and one dating back to the late 1980s, Matacubo onice n 2. Among the other works present is also a gouache on cardboard by Marc Chagall from 1930, Les Paysans.
On the occasion of the inauguration, a series of artist’s jewels made from the drawings of Carla Accardi, Pietro Consagra and Roberto Almagno by Paolo Paolillo of Gioielleria Valadier will be exhibited, exceptionally for the evening. Unique pieces of which the sketches made by the artists are also preserved, a correspondence, told through faxes of the time, which traces the birth of each piece, from the choice of materials to the stones, which testifies to the long friendship that united the artists to Paolillo.
Representing design are the glass creations of Aristide Najeant, a French artist, painter and sculptor who studied with the greatest glass masters of Murano and who in his furnace – La Cattedrale – has created unique and unpublished pieces in which painting and sculpture merge.
A room to discover is dedicated to the special collaboration with La Maison Rive Gauche, founded by Frederic Gachie and Ilaria Lama, a point of reference in Rome for lovers of design and decoration for over 15 years. The atelier stands out for offering an exclusive selection of the best companies and the most refined artisans in the furniture sector. The exhibition tells the story of the bond born from the sharing of an authentic passion for furniture and art, which has evolved into a creative synergy that has helped give shape and soul to Spazio Opis.
SPAZIO OPIS is located in Palazzo Soderini – Frankenstein, built in 1901 by the American Clotilde Brewster (1874-1937), one of the first women architects, for Marianna Frankenstein, a noblewoman of Polish origin, cultured and eccentric, a feminist ante litteram, married to Count Edoardo Soderini.
Today the interiors of the exhibition spaces have been completely renovated thanks to the interventions of the architects Maria Eugenia Muratori and Brigida Paolillo.
The starred chef Natale Giunta will be present with his proposals.