L'Italo-Americano

THURSDAY, MAY 29, 2025 www.italoamericano.org 10 L'Italo-Americano " I looked out the win- dow onto Boulevard Saint-Germain and watched life pass by. I thought: this is the life we should be giving form to. Life as it is now. What nudes? What neoclassicism? W h e r e a r e t h e b a t h e r s ? I p o u r e d m y c o f f e e . T h i s i s where people come together. I thought of the Classics: they always portrayed the life they were living – and the eternal myth…" These lines appear in M o d e r n L i f e a n d t h e Eternal Myth by Fausto Pirandello, the acclaimed p a i n t e r a n d s o n o f N o b e l P r i z e - w i n n i n g p l a y w r i g h t Luigi Pirandello, originally from Agrigento. The passage reflects Faus- to's time in Paris, where he moved in 1927 after a period in Anticoli Corrado, the Lazio village once famed as a haven for artists and models. It was t h e r e h e m e t P o m p i l i a D ' A p r i l e , w h o p o s e d f o r him. They fell in love, moved to Paris together, married, a n d w e l c o m e d t h e i r f i r s t child, Pierluigi, on 5 August 1928. W h i l e i n P a r i s , F a u s t o Pirandello came into contact with artists such as Cézanne, P i c a s s o , B r a q u e , a n d D e C h i r i c o , a n d d e v e l o p e d a highly individual fascination with the French Surrealists. His first solo exhibition was held in 1929 at Galerie Vil- drac. I n 1 9 3 0 , t h e f a m i l y r e t u r n e d p e r m a n e n t l y t o Rome, where Fausto contin- ued his prolific artistic work, receiving numerous prizes and recognitions over the years. He passed away on 30 November 1975. It was his son Pierluigi, together with his wife Giovanna Carlino – a native of Ribera, near Agrigento – who would later promote Fausto's legacy by establishing the Fausto Piran- dello Foundation. One of Pierluigi's greatest wishes was to see his father's work "return to Paris." In pursuit of this, he donated the 1931 painting Morning Interi- or to the Centre Pompi- dou. But when he and Gio- vanna visited the museum in 1 9 9 6 a n d , a f t e r s e v e r a l inquiries, could not locate the painting, they left Paris dis- h e a r t e n e d a n d n e v e r returned. In 2014, as a kind of moral restitution, La Renaissance Française awarded Pierluigi an honorary distinction. Yet the dream of organizing a major exhibition of Fausto's work in the French capital remained unfulfilled. Pierlui- gi passed away on 10 March 2018. Today, that long-await- ed recognition is finally tak- ing shape. The Italian Cul- tural Institute in Paris, under the direction of Anto- nio Calbi, has welcomed the Foundation's proposal, led by Giovanna Carlino Pirandello, to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of Fausto Piran- dello's death with a major exhibition. Opening on 11 June, the show will feature more than sixty works, including paint- ings and works on paper, dis- played at the Hôtel de Gal- l i f f e t , t h e I n s t i t u t e ' s h e a d q u a r t e r s o n r u e d e Varenne 50 in the heart of Saint-Germain – just 200 meters from the Rodin Muse- um and 500 meters from the Musée d'Orsay. Curated by Manuel Car- rera, Scientific Director of the Fausto Pirandello Founda- tion and author of the cata- logue's introductory essay, the exhibition will be inaugu- rated in the presence of Gio- vanna Carlino Pirandello. Titled Painting and the Human Condition, and r u n n i n g u n t i l 3 O c t o b e r 2025, the exhibition is coor- dinated by cultural attaché Stefano Questioli and Alice Origlio for the Institute. It unfolds across five thematic sections, offering a rich and reflective journey through Fausto Pirandello's artistic world. The exhibition opens with The Relationship with Luigi Pirandello, a section that explores the bond between father and son, particularly their time together in Anticoli Corrado shortly before the Nobel laureate's death. It was a moment of both dialogue and tension – one in which Fausto, through exchange a n d e v e n c o n f r o n t a t i o n , s o l i d i f i e d h i s o w n s t a r k , unfiltered vision of reality. The second section, Self- Portraits, focuses on a theme t h a t F a u s t o P i r a n d e l l o returned to throughout his life. These were not mere academic exercises, but med- itative explorations, visual self-inquiries that functioned as mirrors of the soul. Each canvas is a probe into the self, raw and direct, chroni- cling an interiority in flux. Pirandello and Paris, the third section, recounts his move to the French capital in 1927, where he embraced new pictorial languages and confronted modernity head- o n . T h e p a i n t i n g s o f t h a t period, infused with Mediter- ranean light, include still lifes and nudes rendered with a bold, imposing brush. These works capture a Pirandello in f u l l c r e a t i v e e x p a n s i o n , absorbing and challenging the artistic currents of the time. T h e f o u r t h s e c t i o n , A n Inquiry into the Human Con- dition, draws its title from the artist himself: "All my work is the experience of my human condition," he once wrote. This idea serves as a key to his entire oeuvre. His paintings are autobiographi- cal, filled with contradiction, anxiety, and an uncompro- m i s i n g g a z e . T h e h u m a n body, especially the female f o r m , b e c o m e s a v i s u a l m e t a p h o r f o r e x i s t e n t i a l unrest: never idealized, never embellished, always deeply introspective. The fifth and final section, Form and Matter: a Search for Language, brings us into the 1940s. Here, we find a Pirandello undergoing a sig- n i f i c a n t t r a n s f o r m a t i o n . Moving away from the inten- s i t y o f e x p r e s s i o n i s m , h e began to experiment with f r a g m e n t a t i o n a n d f o r m , embracing a kind of personal Cubism that led him toward abstraction. Despite shifting styles, his work remained d e e p l y p e r s o n a l . A c r o s s decades and movements, his g u i d i n g f o r c e w a s a l w a y s i n t r o s p e c t i o n , d e l i v e r e d through thick impasto and a dreamlike, often unsettling atmosphere. "The art of life is the art of encounter," said Vinicius de Moraes – a fitting phrase for the story behind this exhibi- tion. It was one such mean- ingful encounter that led to i t s c r e a t i o n : t h e m e e t i n g b e t w e e n A n t o n i o C a l b i , Director of the Italian Cultur- al Institute in Paris, and Gio- vanna Carlino Pirandello, P r e s i d e n t o f t h e F a u s t o Pirandello Foundation. This c o n n e c t i o n c a m e a b o u t thanks to art historian and critic Maria Teresa Benedetti, a long-time friend of Pierluigi Pirandello since their univer- sity years and later also close t o G i o v a n n a , b o t h s t r o n g advocates for Fausto Piran- dello's art. And when one speaks of the Pirandello family, with its roots in Agrigento, events often seem touched by para- dox or inevitability, as if lift- ed from the very pages of Luigi Pirandello's plays, and shaped by his unique gift for capturing the contradictions of the human spirit. Fausto, though born in Rome, carried within him a deeply Sicilian temperament – something innate, inherited, and unde- niable – that helped shape the remarkable artist we now honor. T o d a y , t h a n k s t o t h i s wide-reaching international initiative, Fausto Pirandello's works can finally be viewed and studied in Paris, the city he once chose for his artistic growth and exploration. The exhibition is open until 3 October. Pierluigi Pirandello – the first of the family's third gen- eration, whose life and work were marked by both artistic and human depth – will be there in spirit at the opening, alongside his wife Giovanna Carlino Pirandello, the Foun- dation's Scientific Director Manuel Carrera, and other m e m b e r s o f t h e F a u s t o Pirandello Foundation. P i r a n d e l l o : t h r e e g e n e r a t i o n s b e t w e e n Agrigento, Rome and Paris TERESA DI FRESCO One of Fausto Pirandello's paintings, Fausto Pirandello, 1934, Padre e figlio (Gioventù ) © Mart, Archivio fotografico e Mediateca, Ph. G. Schiavinotto and, bottom left, Luigi Pirandello (center) with his sons, Stefano and Fausto (By Unknown author - PirandelloOnline, Public Domain) LIFE PEOPLE PLACES EVENTS

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