On the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the Museum of Modern Art, on June 25th, the exhibition The Mario Rimoldi Museum: a fairy tale of Ampezzo. 1974-2024 opens in Cortina d'Ampezzo.

The three floors of the Museum will be rearranged with a selection of over 200 works from the original collection, which includes important 20th-century artists such as de Pisis, de Chirico, Morandi, Vedova, Guttuso, Depero, Musič, Kokoschka

On the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the Mario Rimoldi Museum of Modern Art in Cortina d'Ampezzo, from June 25th to October 6th, 2024, the exhibition The Mario Rimoldi Museum: a fairy tale of Ampezzo. 1974-2024, curated by the Cultural Commission of the Rimoldi Museum, in collaboration with the artist Paolo Barozzi, the archivist Ilaria Lancedelli, and the art curator Giorgio Chinea Canale.

The exhibition, which will span the three floors of the Museum, will highlight a large part of the original legacy, later enriched with new donations, of the collector Mario Rimoldi (1900-1972), who had expressed the intention of keeping the collected works among his beloved mountains. The fiftieth anniversary of the Museum represents an important opportunity to introduce the figure of Mario Rimoldi, his collection, and the Museum dedicated to him, a precious gem of the Ampezzo Rules.

The Collection of Mario Rimoldi

The donation of the collection, received in 1974 by the Ampezzo Rules from Rimoldi's wife, Rosa Braun, and the genesis of the Museum was not an easy process at the time, but it came to fruition thanks to the awareness of the Ampezzo Rules of the value of the collection.

As recalled by Renato Balsamo, the first director of the Museum in charge for 36 years, in the catalog of the Rimoldi Museum of 2010, the donation was concluded thanks to the intervention of Eugenio Gaspari Coletin, then President of the local Rural Bank, with the support of Silvio Menardi Menego and a decisive action in the Regoliera Deputation of Silvino Verocai, who managed to convince the pro-tempore President of the Ampezzo Rules Francesco Ghedina Basilio, in turn supported by Senator Arnoldo Colleselli, to accept such an irreplaceable offer.

The remarkable collection is the result of the passion of a unique man who, as a student at the Hotel School in Rome in the early 1920s, began to take an interest in art, initially focusing on the 19th century, and then becoming increasingly involved in the works of 20th-century masters, even those younger and not yet considered by critics.

At the root of these courageous choices, in addition to innate foresight, were travels, acquaintances such as Giorgio Zamberlan, Giovanni Comisso, and above all the friendship with the one who would become the leading painter of the collection: Filippo de Pisis.

Rimoldi's attraction to "Beauty" had become so intense that it prompted him to seek, with intuition, always new works to surround himself with, including those of: de Pisis, de Chirico, Morandi, Semeghini, Rosai, Campigli, Sironi, Savinio, Corpora, Crippa, Dova, Morlotti, Music, Santomaso, Vedova, Garbari, Depero, Guttuso, Semeghini, Tomea, Tosi, Guidi, Musič, Kokoschka, Léger, Villon, Zadkine, Saetti, Marussig, Viani, Funi.

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