Emilio Malerba (1878-1926), Exhibition Ragghianti Foundation, Lucca

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Emilio Malerba (1878-1926):

From the beginnings to the Italian Twentieth Century

From 27 February to 7 June 2026

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Ragghianti Foundation

Via S. Micheletto, 3, Lucca

Closed now: open at 10:00

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The Fondazione Centro Studi sull’Arte Licia e Carlo Ludovico Ragghianti announces the first major monographic exhibition dedicated, in modern times, to Emilio Malerba (Milan, 1878-1926), a decisive yet still not widely known figure in the Italian artistic panorama of the first half of the 20th century. Scheduled in Lucca, from February 28 to June 7, 2026, at the exhibition halls of the Fondazione Ragghianti, the exhibition, titled “Emilio Malerba (1878-1926). From the beginnings to the Italian Novecento”, curated by Paolo Bolpagni and Elena Pontiggia and realized in collaboration with the Archivio Malerba of Monza, with the crucial support of the Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Lucca, will offer - through a wide corpus of works, original posters, and documents - an organic reflection on the artist's story on the centenary of his death, and almost a century after the last retrospective dedicated to him, dating back to 1931. The exhibition will follow Malerba's artistic journey from his youthful years and the evocative belle époque posters to the post-Scapigliatura, Novecento, and Purist production, presenting a large number of unpublished works, emerged thanks to recent research, which will be exhibited for the first time at the Fondazione Ragghianti. To complete the journey, the works created by other artists of the initial “Novecento” group, namely Anselmo Bucci, Leonardo Dudreville, Achille Funi, Piero Marussig, Ubaldo Oppi, and Mario Sironi, along with a portrait of Malerba executed by Primo Sinopico in 1917, will be presented to delve into nuances and visions of a group that never fully conformed stylistically. After his beginnings linked to the late Scapigliatura and his affirmation in the field of advertising graphics, Malerba defined a more solid and personal painting in 1916, reaching from 1920 a precise and suspended form that critics would recognize as Magical Realism. In 1922, he was among the founders of the “Novecento” group, but his intense expressive research was abruptly interrupted by an incurable illness that struck him three years later. Despite the brevity of his career, Malerba managed to outline a highly refined poetics, focused on the investigation of the “real”, understood not as simple realism, but as a revelation of the inner dimension of figures and objects. His protagonists and his universe of small things convey an intimate, domestic, and collected world, where behind everyday life emerges an introspective and delicate sensitivity. After training at the Accademia di Brera, Emilio Malerba made his debut in 1906 with works that approached the late Scapigliatura, between landscapes and portraits of evanescent subjects, while later he distinguished himself especially for the creation of advertising posters that refer to the belle époque world. Among those exhibited at the Fondazione Ragghianti are the posters designed for Amaro Ramazzotti in Milan and for the Grandi Magazzini Italiani E. & A. Mele & C. in Naples, where the author's interest in the female figure and its representation emerges, later turned towards expressing the inner life of subjects rather than their physiognomic rendering. From 1916, the artist structured his painting more, so much so that in 1922 he exhibited a series of paintings at the XIII Venice Biennale, including the famous “Le maschere” (1922), present in the Lucca exhibition, which highlights Malerba's harmony with the new current of Magical Realism, where the meticulous rendering of the world paradoxically reveals its mysterious and elusive essence. This sensitivity also emerges in works like “Ritratto di giovinetta” (1919) or “Femmina volgo” (1920), where the subjects become clearer yet elusive, immersed in everyday but secretly enchanted contexts. Now, as later, Malerba's imagery is that of domestic intimacy, family confidences, lives that do not exceed the perimeter of a room, of women, girls, and adolescents immersed in their small universe, which reveals, behind the veil of everyday existence, the delicacy of feelings and the introspective sensitivity that animates his protagonists.

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Artsupp Card: museum + exhibitions 13.00 €

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monday	Closed now
tuesday	10:00 - 19:00
wednesday	10:00 - 19:00
thursday	10:00 - 19:00
friday	10:00 - 19:00
saturday	10:00 - 19:00
sunday	10:00 - 19:00

Emilio Malerba (1878-1926):

From the beginnings to the Italian Twentieth Century

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