FIRENZE - Palazzo Strozzi  
"Picasso, Miró, Dalí. Angry Young Men: the Birth of Modernity"
from 12 March to 17 July 2011

The exhibition is dedicated to the early work of Picasso, Miró and Dalí, which played a decisive role in the beginning of modern art in Spain. 
The exhibition concentrates on Picasso's pre-cubist period 1900 - 1905, whilst Juan Miró's works of 1915-1920 are presented along with Salvador Dali's from 1920-1925, both artists painting in the period before the discovery of surrealism. 
Each artist will be represented by 25 - 30 masterpieces selected to show aspects of the three artists in their earliest periods, works that are rarely shown in mainstream catalogues and exhibitions. For instance, Picasso's early work was often coloured by his strong political convictions.
In Madrid in 1901, Picasso and his anarchist friend Francisco de Asís Soler founded the magazine Arte Joven (Young Art), which published five issues. 
Picasso illustrated the journal, mostly contributing grim cartoons depicting and sympathizing with the state of the poor. 
Miró too understood art as political, and Miró's oft-quoted assassination of painting is derived from a dislike of bourgeois art of any kind, especially when used as a way to promote cultural identity among the wealthy. 
Specifically, Miró saw Cubism in this way, and he is quoted as saying I will break their guitars, referring to Picasso and Braque's early Cubist paintings. 
Much younger than Picasso and Miró, Dalí was expelled from the Academia in 1926 shortly before his final exams when he stated that no one on the faculty was competent enough to examine him. 
His mastery of painting skills is well documented in his early works, such as the flawlessly realistic Girl at the window, which was painted in 1926.
That same year he made his first visit to Paris where he met with Pablo Picasso, whom young Dalí revered - Picasso had already heard favourable things about Dalí from Joan Miró.

More information: http://www.palazzostrozzi.org

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ROMA - Palazzo delle Esposizioni 
"One Hundred Masterpieces from the Städel Museum of Frankfurt, Impressionism,  Expressionism,  Avant-Garde" 
from 1 April - 17 July 2011

This exhibition marks the first opportunity the general public will ever have had to admire the Städel Museum's famous collection in Italy. One of the richest and most prestigious collections of European old masters and modern art anywhere, it was established by merchant and banker Johann Friederich Städel in 1815.
In keeping with the Palazzo delle Esposizioni's "modernist" calling, the selection we plan to display will come mostly from collection's 19th and 20 century section, providing an overview of European art history from the Nazarenes to the Romantics, from Realism to Impressionism, and from Symbolism to the Avant-Garde. Divided into seven stylistic and chronological sections which will be hosted in the seven galleries surrounding the Palazzo delle Esposizioni's monumental Rotunda, the exhibition will include masterpieces by Tischbein, Koch, Corot, Monet, Degas, Renoir, Van Gogh, Cézanne, Böcklin and Feuerbach, and then on up to Moreau, Redon, Hodler, Munch, Beckmann, Ernst, Klee and Picasso.
The exhibition begins with early 19th century German classicism, introduced by the extremely famous portrait of Goethe Resting in the Roman Campagna which Tischbein painted in 1786-1787 and which has become something of an iconic symbol of the legendary Italian Grand Tour. This is followed by a sweeping tribute to the French Impressionists - from the realistic landscapes of Corot and Courbet to the radiant Impressionism of Renoir's portraits and the sumptuous Parisian atmosphere of Degas.
The main part of the exhibition is devoted to Symbolism, represented here by the group's most important exponents (Böcklin, Ensor, Moreau, Munch and Redon) with their evocation of imagined and disquieting worlds, echoed also in a sophisticated group of Nabis works (Bonnard, Vallotton and Vuillard). The exhibition continues with masterpieces of the German Expressionist school, represented by Die Brücke group (with Heckel and Nolde) and Der Blaue Reiter group (with Marc and Jawlensky) whose artistic output tended toward a dramatic and radical form of painting.
Max Beckmann - an artist with expressionist inclinations but difficult to pin down to any specific trend - and his powerful and incisive style reflecting the complexity of early 20th century European culture have a whole section to themselves, while the exhibition closes with the visionary experimentalism of such artists as Max Ernst, Paul Klee and Pablo Picasso, offering the visitor an exceptional overview of painting as it teetered on the brink of 20th century modernity.

More information: http://www.palazzoesposizioni.it