XX The Female Gender in Twentieth Century Art
Online Exhibition
XX: THE FEMALE GENDER IN XXth CENTURY ITALIAN ART is the latest in a series of meaningful exhibitions by curator Monica Cardarelli, and is the first exhibition to be made available online by Laocoon Gallery following its successful inauguration in Florence and subsequent displays in Rome, Milan and London.
The complete exhibition comprised around one hundred works, with techniques ranging between paintings, drawings, pastels, bronzes, terracotta and ceramics, of Italian artists from the 20th Century who represented as many female figures. Wives or lovers, virgins or prostitutes, holy mothers like the Madonna or man-eating she-devils. Chaste teenagers or mature Magdalenes, but also goddesses, nymphs, legendary personifications of Spring or Italy, imposing and shapely figures wearing crowns of turreted walls.
The title of the exhibition uses “XX” as both chromosomes and Roman numerals in order to represent not only the genes that determine a woman’s sex but also the 20th Century, an era which saw unprecedented change in the role, status, appearance and condition of women.
Exhibition curator, gallery director and strong advocate of women’s rights Monica Cardarelli, who has researched and brought together this astonishing selection of art portraying the female gender in its many representations and transfigurations, says of the exhibition, “In a single image we can find a myriad of stories and destinies that intertwine and overlap, and this is also the case for each of the other images that make up this exhibition. Each contains stories that oscillate between past and present, leading to a series of reflections, to which are added those generated by their being together, by the dialogue that inevitably they entertain while standing side by side.”

Achille Funi
Lucrezia Romana, c.1940
Oil on canvas, 60 x50 cm
£30,000.00

Achille Funi
Ugo and Parisina, 1934
Pastel on mounted paper, 93 x 72 cm
P.O.A

Alberto Martini
Aurelia, the actress Jenny Colon, 1934
Watercolour on paper, 30 x 21.1 cm
£15,000.00

Alberto Savinio
Portrait of Marcella Giulini, 1949
Oil on panel, 30.3 x 40.5 cm
P.O.A

Alberto Ziveri
Postribolo, 1945
Oil on canvas, 23 x 26 cm
£18,000.00

Alberto Ziveri
Female nude with a fan, 1958
Oil on canvas, 170 x 90 cm
P.O.A

Andrea Spadini
Amaca Zanardo, 1954
Terracotta, 35 x 12 x 33 cm
£10,000.00

Andrea Spadini
Girl with a bird, 1939
Tuff, 46 x 48 x 27 cm
£16,000.00

Andrea Spadini
Leda and the swan, 1959
Glazed ceramic, 80 x 52 x 27 cm
P.O.A

Antonio Canova
Joachim Murat & Caroline Bonaparte, 1813
Plaster, 66 x 26 x27 – 58.5 x 26 x 27 cm
P.O.A

Antonio Mancini
Female figure, c.1915
Charcoal and pastel on paper, 41 x 27 cm
£8,500.00

Antonio Scordia
Portrait of Valentina, 1951
Oil on canvas, 150 x 100 cm
£28,000.00

Armando Spadini
Study for the finding of Moses
Oil on canvas, 70 x 57.5 cm
£26,000.00

Dino Buzzati
The Harem, 1958
Pastel on paper, 29.2 x 39.5 cm
£20,000.00

Edita Walterowna Broglio
Study for Terrace by the sea, 1949
Pencil on paper, 96 x 123 cm
£25,000.00

Enrico Prampolini
Female nude, c.1945
Indian ink on paper, 27 x 21 cm
£6,000.00

Enrico Prampolini
Female nude, c.1945
Indian ink on paper, 27 x 21 cm
£6,000.00

Enrico Sacchetti
Fashion and women, 1913
Tempera pouchoir, 32.5 x 24 cm
£5,000.00

Enrico Sacchetti
Fashion and women
Tempera pouchoir, 32.4 x 24 cm
£5,000.00

Enrico Sacchetti
Portrait of Eleonora Duse, c.1910
Tempera pouchoir, 35 x 26 cm
£7,000.00

Ferruccio Ferrazzi
Figure of the Merry go round, 1936
Oil on canvas, 50 x 42 cm
£16,000.00

Ferruccio Ferrazzi
Naked girl, 1936
Oil on canvas, 74 x 52 cm
£40,000.00

Giulio Aristide Sartorio
Reading woman, 1891
Pastel on paper, 85 x 48 cm
£40,000.00

Lea Monetti
Laocoon Mother, 2015
Bronze, 79 x 66 x 27.5 cm
£40,000.00

Libero Andreotti
Venus Fortune, 1928-31
Bronze, 78 x 25 x 15 cm
P.O.A

Lila de Nobili
Sketch for the costume of Maria Callas in La Traviata, 1955
Indian ink and watercolour on grey paper, 24.5 x 18 cm
£10,000.00

Margherita Vanarelli
Female figure with a child in a high chair, 1963
Mix media on paper, 27.5 x 21.5 cm
£7,000.00

Marisa Mori
Self-portrait, 1930
Oil on panel, 44 x 51 cm
£13,000.00

Pietro Gaudenzi
Bread bearers (from Il Grano triptych), 1940
Pastel on mounted paper, 230 x 140 cm
P.O.A

Pietro Gaudenzi
Farmers of Anticoli Corrado (from Il Grano triptych), 1940
Pastel on mounted paper, 230 x 140 cm
P.O.A

Renato Guttuso
Medusa, 1985
Indian ink and watercolour on paper, 40.5 x 41.5 cm
£16,000.00

Roberto Melli
Portrait of Anna Maria Passarella, 1954
Oil on canvas, 150 x 90 cm
£35,000.00

Thayaht
Manekinos, 1922
Pencil and tempera on paper, 20 x 13 cm
£8,000.00

Ubaldo Oppi
Portrait of his wife Adele Leone, 1923-24
Pencil on paper, 70 x 58 cm
£25,000.00

Umberto Brunelleschi
America goddess of war, c.1935
Tempera and pencil on paper, 33 x 25 cm
£7,000.00

Umberto Brunelleschi
United States Army Red Cross nurse, c.1935
Tempera and pencil on paper, 35 x 25 cm
£7,000.00